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58th Congress I 
3d Session I 



Senate 



/Document 
1 No. 201 



GEORGE F. HOAR 



( Late a Senator from Massachusetts ) 



Memorial Addresses Delivered in the 
Senate and House of Representatives 



Third Session of the 
Fifty-eighth Congress 



Compiled under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing 



WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1905 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Page 

Proceedings in the Senate 5 

Prayer by Rev. Edward Everett Hale 5 

Prayer by Rev. Edward Everett Hale 9 

Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 12 

Address of Mr. Allison, of Iowa 42 

Address of Mr. Cockrell, of Missouri 48 

Address of Mr. Piatt, of Connecticut 53 

Address of Mr. Teller, of Colorado 59 

Address of Mr. Cullom, of Illinois 65 

Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 71 

Address of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire 79 

Address of Mr. Bacon, of Georgia ... 84 

Address of Mr. Perkins, of California 89 

Address of Mr. Fairbanks, of Indiana 96 

Address of Mr. Pettus, of Alabama 102 

Address of Mr. Gorman, of Maryland 105 

Address of Mr. Depew, of New York 108 

Address of Mr. McComas, of Maryland 117 

Address of Mr. Crane, of Massachusetts 123 

Proceedings in the House 127 

Prayer by Rev. Henry N. Couden 129 

Address of Mr. Lovering, of Massachusetts 131 

Address of Mr. Gillett, of Massachusetts 136 

Address of Mr. Lawrence, of Massachusetts 140 

Address of Mr. Thayer, of Massachusetts 145 

Address of Mr. Sullivan, of Massachusetts 151 

Address of Mr. Greene, of Massachuseetts 154 

Address of Mr. Tirrell, of Massachusetts 162 

Address of Mr. Clark, of Missouri 169 

Address of Mr. Dnscoll, of New York 180 

Address of Mr. Powers, of Massachusetts 185 

Address of Mr. Keliher, of Massachusetts 189 

3 



6 Proceedings in I In- Senate 

conditions of men Thou shalt make Thy gospel known, each 
for all and all for each, for all races and all sects and creeds 
and communions, that all may join in the common service, as 
children working with their Father. Thou art with us; hear 
us and answer us. 

And we remember, Father, those whose faces we shall not 
see here ever again — Thy servants whom Thou hast lifted to 
higher service. They pray while we pray; they hope as we 
hope. Bind us together, those whom we see and those whom 
we do not see, in the great brotherhood of the children of the 
living God. We ask it and offer it in Christ Jesus. 

Join me in the Lord's prayer. 

( )ur Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy 
kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in 
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our 
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And 
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine 
is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. 

DEATHS OF SENATOR OFAY AND SKNATOR HOAR. 

Mr. PENROSE. Mr. President, it is my sad duty to announce 
to the Senate the death of my late colleague, Matthew Stan- 
ley Quay, which occurred at his home in Beaver, Pa., on the 
28th day of May last. 

I shall not at this moment take up the time of the Senate 
with any extended remarks touching his personal character 
and his public services, but will content myself with simply 
submitting the following resolutions, asking consideration for 
them after similar resolutions, which I understand the Senator 
from Massachusetts desires to submit, have been considered. 

At some more appropriate time I will ask the .Senate to sus- 
pend its ordinary business in order that fitting tribute ma}- be 
paid to the memory of my deceased colleague. 



Proceedings in the Senate 7 

The President pro tempore. The Senator from Pennsyl- 
vania offers resolutions which will be read. 

The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows: 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow and deep 
regret of the death of Hon. Matthew Stanley Quay, late a Senator 
from the State of Pennsylvania. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate a copy of these resolutions 
to the House of Representatives. 

The resolutions were cousidered by unanimous consent, and 
unanimously agreed to. 

Mr. Lodge. Mr. President, it is my painful duty to make 
formal announcement to the Senate that the senior Senator from 
Massachusetts, Hon. George Frisbie Hoar, died at his home 
in Worcester on the 30th of September last. 

At some future time I shall ask the Senate to set apart a day 
fittingly to commemorate his high character, his distinguished 
career, and his eminent services. 

At this time I offer the following resolutions, and ask for 
their adoption. 

The President pro tempore. The resolutions will be read. 

The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows: 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
of the Hon. GEORGE F. Hoar, late a Senator from the State of Massa- 
chusetts. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate a copy of these resolutions 
to the House of Representatives. 

The resolutions were considered by unanimous consent, and 
unanimously agreed to. 

Mr. Lodge. Mr. President, in behalf of the Senator from 
Pennsylvania and myself I now offer the following resolution, 
and ask for its immediate consideration. 

The President pro tempore. The resolution will be read. 

The resolution was read, as follows: 

Resolved, That, as a further mark of respect to the memory of the two 
Senators whose deaths have just been announced, the Senate do now 
adjourn. 



Proceedings in the Senate 

The resolution was considered by unanimous consent, and 
unanimously agreed to. 

The Senate accordingly (at 12 o'clock and 12 minutes p. m. I 
adjourned until to-morrow, Tuesday, December 6, [904, at 12 

1 iclock meridian. 

January 9, 1905. 

memorial addresses on the late senator hoar. 

Mr. LODGE. Mr. President, I desire to give notice that on 
January 28, immediately after the routine morning business, I 
shall ask the Senate to consider resolutions in commemoration 
of the life, character, and public services of my late colleague, 
Hon. George Frishie Hoar. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 

Saturday, January 28, 1905. 
Rev. Edward E. Hale, the Chaplain of the Senate, offered 
the following prayer: 

Let us now praise famous men. The Lord hath wrought great glory by 
them, through His great power from the beginning. 

Men renowed for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, 
leaders of the people by their counsel and by their knowledge of learning 
m et for the people — wise and eloquent in their instructions. 

All these were honored in their generations and were the glory of their 
times. The people will tell of their wisdom and the congregation will 
show f< irth their praise. 

Father, we ask Thee to keep green and fresh the memories 
of such fathers in the past, of those whom we have seen with 
our eyes and have heard with our ears, that in all coming time 
such mens' lives may live among the children and the children's 
children. 

Teach us to-day, teach all this people, that Thou art pleased 
to do Thy work by the agency of Thy children who enter into 
Thy service and go about a Father's business. Show us how 
they can be strong with Thy strength, wise in Thy wisdom, 
and interpret Thy law. 

Keep green and fresh for us the memory of him whom we do 
not see here, but whom we loved to see; whom we do not hear, 
but whom we remember, that this Senate, that the people of 
this country, may lie loyal as he to friends, to Senate, to 
country, and to the world. It is not in vain for us that Thou 
hast sent forth such children to interpret Thy purpose and to 
carry out Thy law. 

First and last and always show us that Thy law may be our 
law, that Thy kingdom may come, and that we are to enter 

9 



u > Memorial . Iddresses 

into Thy service, that it may come the sooner. We ask it in 
Christ Jesus. 

( )ur Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy 
kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in 
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us 
our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. 
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for 
Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. 
Amen. 



Memorial Addresses n 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES ON THE LATE SENATOR HOAR. 

Mr. Lodge. Mr. President, before sending the resolutions 
to the desk I wish to state, as I have been asked to do, that 
the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Spooner] , who was very 
anxious to be here to-day and to speak to the resolutions, and 
whose long. friendship with Mr. Hoar is well known to the 
Senate, is unfortunately prevented suddenly by illness from 
coming; he is unable to leave his house. I now send the 
resolutions to the desk. 

The President pro tempore. The Senator from Massachu- 
setts submits resolutions, which will be read. 

The Secretary read the resolutions, as follows: 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the 
death of Hon. GEORGE F. Hoar, late a .Senator from the State of Mas- 
sachusetts. 

Resolved, That as a mark of respect to the memory of the deceased 
the business of the Senate be now suspended, to enable his associates 
to pay proper tribute to his high character and distinguished public 
services. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate these resolutions to the 
House of Representatives. 

The President pro tempore. Will the Senate agree to the 
resolutions? 

The resolutions were unanimously agreed to. 



12 Lijc and Character of George F. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 

Mr. President: Duty and desire alike command that I 
should speak of Mr. Hoar, to whose memory we consecrate 
this day, as a distinguished statesman, an historic figure, and a 
representative man of a remarkable and an eventful time. But 
for me to speak in this place in such fashion is most difficult. 
Curse leves loquuntur; ingentes stupent. 

I trust that the Senate, remembering this, will accord to my 
shortcomings the indulgence which I am only too well aware I 
shall greatly need. 

Men distinguished above their fellows, who have won a 
place in history, may be of interest and importance to pos- 
terity as individuals or a-- representatives of their time, or in 
both capacities. Hobbes and Descartes, for instance, are 
chiefly if not wholly interesting for what they themselves 
were and for their contributions to human thought which 
might conceivably have been made at any epoch. On the 
other hand, Pepys and St. Simon, substantially contemporary 
with the two philosophers, are primarily of interest and im- 
portance as representative men, embodiments and exponents 
of the life and thought of their time. Benjamin Franklin, 
to take a later example, was not only deeply interesting as 
an individual, but he seemed to embody in himself the ten- 
dencies of thought and the entire meaning and attitude of 
the eighteenth century in its broadest significance. Mr. 
Hoar belongs to the class which is illustrated in such a high 
degree by Franklin, for he has won and will hold his place 
in history nut only l>v what he was and what he did, but 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 13 

because lie was a very representative man in a period fruitful 
in great events and conspicuous for the consolidation of the 
United States — the greatest single fact of the last century, 
measured by its political and economic effect upon the for- 
tunes of mankind and upon the history of the world. 

To appreciate properly and understand intelligently any 
man who has made substantial achievement in art or letters, 
in philosophy or science, in war or politics, and who has 
also lived to the full the life of his time, we must turn first 
to those conditions over which he himself had no control. 
In his inheritances, in the time and place of birth, in the 
influences and the atmosphere of childhood and youth we 
can often find the key to the mystery which every human 
existence presents and obtain a larger explanation of the 
meaning of the character and career before us than the man's 
own life and deeds will disclose. 

This is especially true of Mr. Hoar, for his race and 
descent, his time and place of birth are full of significance 
if we would rightly understand one who was at once a 
remarkable and a highly representative man. He came of a 
purely English stock. His family in England were people of 
consideration and substance, possessing both education and 
established position before America was discovered. Belong- 
ing in the seventeenth century to that class of prosperous 
merchants and tradesmen, of country gentlemen and farmers 
which gave to England Cromwell and Hampden, Eliot and 
Pym, they were Puritans in religion and in politics support- 
ers of the Parliament and opponents of the King. Charles 
Hoar, sheriff of Gloucester and enrolled in the record of the 
city government as " Generosus " or "gentleman," died in 
1638. Two years later his widow, Joanna Hoar, with five of 
her children, emigrated to New England. One of the sons, 



14 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

Leonard Hoar, chosen by his father to go to Oxford and 
become a minister, entered Harvard College, then just founded, 
and graduated there in 1650. He soon after returned to 
England, where he was presented to a living under the Pro- 
tectorate. He married Bridget, the daughter of John Lisle, 
commonly called Lord Lisle, one of the regicides assassinated 
later at Lausanne, where he had taken refuge, by royal 
emissaries after'the King had come to his own again. John 
Lisle's wife, the Lady Alicia, died on the scaffold in 1685, 
the most famous and pathetic victim in the tragedy of Jef- 
freys'* "Bloody Assize." Her son-in-law, Leonard Hoar, 
ejected from his living under the Act of Uniformity, studied 
medicine, and returning to Xew England ten years later 
became in 1672 president of Harvard College, and died in 
1675. 

Senator Hoar was descended from an elder brother of the 
president of Harvard, John Hoar, evidently a man of as strong 
character and marked abilities as the rest of his family. The 
old records contain more than one account of his clashings 
with the intolerant and vigorous theocracy which governed 
Massachusetts, and of the fines and imprisonments which he 
endured; but he never seems either to have lost the respect 
of the community or to have checked his speech. We get a 
bright glimpse of him in 1690, when Sewall says, in his diarv 
on November S of that year: 

Jim. Hoar comes into the lobby ami sais he comes from the Lord, by 
the Lord, to speak for the Lord; complains that sins as bad as Sodom's 
found here. 

In every generation following we find men of the same 
marked character who were graduates of Harvard, active citi- 
zens, successful in their callings, taking a full share of public 
duties and in the life of their times. Senator Hoar's great 



Address of Mr. Lodge^ of Massachusetts 15 

grandfather, who had served in the old French war, and his 
grandfather were both in the fight at Concord Bridge. His 
father, Samuel Hoar, was one of the most distinguished law- 
yers in Massachusetts. He served in both branches of the 
State legislature, and was a Member of Congress. Honored 
throughout the .State, his most conspicuous action was his 
journey to Charleston to defend certain negro sailors, and from 
that city, where his life was in danger, he was expelled because 
he desired to give his legal services to protect men of another 
and an enslaved race. 

On his mother's side Senator Hoar was a descendant of the 
John Sherman who landed in Massachusetts in 1630 and be- 
came the progenitor of a family which has been extraordinarily 
prolific in men of high ability and distinction. In the century 
just closed this family gave to the country and to history 
one of our most brilliant soldiers, one of our most eminent 
statesmen and financiers, and through the female line the 
great lawyer and orator, Mr. Evarts, and E. Rockwood Hoar, 
distinguished alike as judge, as Member of Congress, and as 
Attorney-General of the United States. In the eighteenth 
century we owe to the same blood and name one of the most 
eoiiNpicuous of the great men who made the Revolution 
and founded the United States, Roger Sherman, signer of the 
Declaration of Independence, signer of the articles of Confed- 
eration, signer of the Constitution, first Senator from Con- 
necticut, and grandfather of Mr. Hoar, as he was also of Mr. 
Evarts. I have touched upon this genealogy more, perhaps, 
than is usual upon such occasions, not only because it is 
remarkable, but because it seems to me full of light and mean- 
ing in connection with those who, in the years just past, had 
the right to claim it for their own. We see these people, 
when American history begins, identified with the cause of 



1 6 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

constitutional freedom and engaged in resistance to what they 
deemed tyranny in church and state. They became exiles for 
their faith, and the Mood <>f the victims of vStuart revenge is 
sprinkled on their garments. They venture their lives again 
at the outbreak of our own Revolution. They take a con- 
tinuous part in public affairs. They feel it to be their busi- 
ness to help the desolate and oppressed, from John Hoar 
sheltering and succoring the Christian Indians, in the dark 
and bloody days of King Philip's war, to Samuel Hoar, going 
forth into the midst of a bitterly hostile community 10 defend 
the helpless negroes. The tradition of sound learning, the 
profound belief in the highest education, illustrated by Leonard 
Hoar in the seventeenth century, are never lost or weakened 
in the succeeding generations. Through all their history runs 
unchanged the deep sense of public responsibility, of patriotism, 
and of devotion to high ideals of conduct. The stage upon 
which they played their several parts might be large or small. 
but the light which guided them was always the same. They 
were Puritans of the Puritans. As the centuries passed, the 
Puritan was modified in many ways, but the elemental quali- 
ties of the powerful men who had crushed crown and miter 
in a common ruin, altered the course of English history, and 
founded a new state in a new world, remained unchanged. 

So patented and so descended, Mr. Hoar inherited certain 
deep-rooted conceptions of duty, of character, and of the con- 
duct of life, which were as much a part of his being as the color 
of his eyes or the shape of his hand. Where and when was he 
horn to this noble heritage? We must ask and answer this 
question, for there is a world of suggestion in the place and 
time of a man's birth when that man has come to have a mean- 
ing and an importance to hisown generation as well as to those 
which succeed it iii the slow procession of the years. 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 17 

Concord, proclaimed by Webster as one of the glories of 
Massachusetts which no untoward fate could wrest from her, 
was the place of his birth. About the quiet village were 
gathered all the austere traditions of the colonial time. It 
had witnessed the hardships of the early settlers, it had 
shared and shuddered in the horrors of Indian wars, it had 
seen the slow and patient conquest of the wilderness. There 
within its boundaries had blazed high a great event, catching 
the eyes of a careless world which little dreamed how far 
the fire then lighted would spread. Along its main road, 
overarched by elms, the soldiers of England marched that 
pleasant April morning. There is the bridge where the farmers 
returned the British fire and advanced. There is the tomb of 
the two British soldiers who fell in the skirmish, and whose 
grave marks the spot where the power of England on the 
North American Continent first began to ebb. Truly there 
is no need of shafts of stone or statues of bronze, for the 
whole place is a monument to the deeds which there were 
done. The very atmosphere is redolent of great memories; 
the gentle ripple of the placid river, the low voice of the wind 
among the trees, all murmur the story of patriotism and 
teach devotion to the nation, which, from "the bridge that 
arched the flood," set forth upon its onward march. 

And then just as Mr. Hoar began to know his birthplace 
the town entered upon a new phase which was to give it a 
place in literature and in the development of modern thought 
as eminent as that which it had already gained in the history 
of the country. Emerson made Concord his home in 1835, 
Hawthorne came there to live seven years later, and Thoreau, 
a native of the town, was growing to manhood in those same 
years. To Mr. Hoar's inheritance of public service, of devo- 
tion to duty, and of lofty ideals of conduct, to the family 
S. Doc. 201, 58-3 2 



iS Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

influences which surrounded him and which all pointed to work 
and achievement as the purpose and rewards of life, were 
added those of the place where he lived, the famous little 
town which drew from the past lessons of pride and love of 
country, and offered in the present examples of lives given to 
literature and philosophy, to the study of nature, and to the 
hopes and destiny of man here and hereafter. 

Thus highly gifted in his ancestry, in his family, and in his 
traditions, as well as in the place and the community in which 
he was to pass the formative years of boyhood and youth, 
Mr. HoAR was equally fortunate in the time of his birth, 
which often means so much in the making of a character and 
career. He was born on the .?qth of August, 1S26. Super- 
ficially it was one of the most uninteresting periods in the 
history of western civilization — dominated in Europe by small 
men, mean in its hopes, low in its ambitions. But beneath 
the surface vast forces were germinating and gathering, which 
in their development were to affect profoundly both Europe 
and America. 

The great movement which, beginning with the revolt of the 
American colonies, had wrought the French Revolution, con- 
vulsed Europe, anil made Napoleon possible, had spent itself 
and sunk into exhaustion at Waterloo. The reaction reigned 
supreme. It was the age of the Metternichs and Castlereaghs, 
of the Eldons and Liverpools, of Spanish and Neapolitan Bour- 
bons. With a stupidity equaled only by their confidence and 
insensibility, these men and others like them sought to establish 
again the old tyrannies and believed that they could restore 
a dead system and revive a vanished society. They utterly 
failed to grasp the fact that where the red-hot plowshares of 
the French Revolution had passed the old crops could never 
flourish again. The White Terror swept over France, and a 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 19 

little later the Due Decazes, the only man who understood t he- 
situation, was driven from power because he tried to establish 
the conditions upon which alone the Bourbon monarchy could 
hope to survive. The Holy Alliance was formed to uphold 
autocracy and crush out the aspirations of any people who 
sought to obtain the simplest rights and the most moderate 
freedom. To us Webster's denunciation of the Holy Alliance 
sounds like an academic exercise, designed simply to display 
the orator's power, but to the men of that day it had a most 
real and immediate meaning. The quiet which Russia and 
Austria called peace reigned over much wider regions than 
Warsaw. England cringed and burned incense before the 
bewigged and padded effigy known as "George the Fourth." 
France did the bidding of the dullest and most unforgetting of 
the Bourbons. Anyone who ventured to criticise any existing 
arrangement was held up to scorn and hatred as an enemy of 
society, driven into exile like Byron and Shelley, or cast into 
prison like Leigh Hunt. 

But the great forces which had caused both the American 
and French revolutions were not dead. They were only 
gathering strength for a renewed movement, and the first voices 
of authority which broke the deadly quiet came from England 
and the United States. When the Holy Alliance stretched out 
its hand to thrust back the Spanish colonies into bondage 
Canning declared that he would call in the "New World to 
redress the balance of the Old," and Monroe announced that in 
that New World there should be no further European coloniza- 
tion and no extension of the monarchical principle. Greece 
rose against the Turks, and lovers of liberty everywhere went 
to her aid, for even the Holy Alliance did not dare to make the 
Sultan a partner in a combination which professed to be the 
defender of Christianity as well as of despotic government 



2o Life and Character of George /■'. Hoar 

When Mr. Hoar was born the Greek revolution was afoot, 
the first stirrings of t lit- oppressed and divided nationalities 
had begun, the liberal movement was again lifting its head 
and preparing to confront the entrenched, uncompromising 
forces of the reaction. When he was four years old Concord 
heard of the fighting in the Paris streets during the three 
days of July, and of the fall of the Bourbon monarchy. When 
he was six years old the passage of the reform bill brought to 
England a peaceful revolution instead of one in arms, and 
crumbled into dust the system of Castlereagh and Liverpool 
and Wellington. 

The change and movement thus manifested were not con- 
fined to politics. As Mr. Hoar went back and forth to school 
in the Concord Academy the new forces were spreading into 
every field of thought and action. Revolt against conventions 
in art and literature and against existing arrangements of 
society was as ardent as that against political oppression, 
while creeds and dogmas were called in question as unspar- 
ingly as the right of the few to govern the many. In Eng- 
land one vested abuse after another was swept away by the 
Reform Parliament. It was discovered that Shelley and 
Byron, the outlaws of twenty years before, were among the 
greatest of England's poets. Dickens startled the world and 
won thousands of readers by bringing into his novels whole 
rlasses of human beings unknown to polite fiction since the 
days of Fielding, and by plunging into the streets of London 

to find among the ] r. the downtrodden, and the criminal 

characters which he made immortal. Carlvlc was crying out 
against venerated shams in his fierce satire on the Philosophy 
of Clothes. Macaulay was vindicating the men of the great 
rebellion to a generation which had been brought up to be- 
lieve that the Puritans were little better than cutthroats, and 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 21 

Oliver Cromwell a common military usurper. The English 
establishment was shaken by the Oxford movement, which 
carried Newman to Rome, drove others to the extreme of 
skepticism, and breathed life into the torpid church, sending 
its ministers out into the world of men as missionaries and 
social reformers. 

In France, after the days of July, the romantic movement 
took full possession of literature, and the Shakespeare whom 
Voltaire rejected became to the new school the head of the 
corner. The sacred Alexandrine of the days of L,ouis XIV 
gave way to varied measures which found their inspiration 
in the poets of the Renaissance. The plays of Hugo and 
Dumas drove the classical drama from the stage; the verse 
of De Musset, the marvelous novels of Balzac were making 
a new era in the literature of France. 

Italy, alive with conspiracies, was stirring from one end to 
the other with aspirations for national unity and with resistance 
to the tyranny of Neapolitan Bourbons and Austrian Haps- 
burgs. Hungary was moving restlessly ; Poland was strug- 
gling vainly with her fetters. Plans, too, for social regeneration 
were filling the minds of men. St. Simon's works had come 
into fashion. It was the age of Fourier and Proudhon, of 
Bentham and Comte. 

Such were the voices and such the influences which then 
came across the Atlantic, very powerful and very impressive to 
the young men of that da) - , especially to those who were begin- 
ning to reflect highly and seriously upon the meaning of life. 
And all about them in America the same portents were visible. 
Everything was questioned. Men dreamed dreams and saw 
visions. There is a broad, an impassable gulf between the deep 
and beautiful thought, the mysticism and the transcendentalism 
of Emerson and the wild vagaries of Miller and the Second 



22 Life and Character oj George F. Hoar 

Adventists, or the crude vulgarity of Joseph Smith, yet were 
they all manifestations of the religious cravings which had 
succeeded the frigid skepticism of the eighteenth century and 
the dull torpor of the period of reaction. So, too. Brook Farm 
and the ( )neida Community were widely different attempts to 
put into practice some of the schemes of social regeneration 
then swarming in the imagination of men. Literature was 
uplifting itself to successes never yet reached in the Xew World. 
It was the period of Foe and Hawthorne, of Longfellow and 
Lowell, of Holmes and Whittier. Bancroft and Prescott were 
already at work; Motley was beginning his career with 
romantic novels. And then behind all this literature, all these 
social experiments, all these efforts to pierce the mystery of 
man's existence, was slowly rising the agitation against 
slavery, a dread reality destined to take possession of the 
country's history. 

These influences, these voices were everywhere when Mr. 
Hoar, a vigorous, clever, thoughtful boy of sixteen, left his 
school at Concord and entered Harvard College in 1S42. Brook 
Farm had been started in the previous year ; the next was to 
witness Miller's millennium ; lie was halfway through college 
when Joseph Smith was killed at Xauvoo. In his third vear 
the long battle which John Quincy Adams had waged for nearlv 
a decade in behalf of the right of petition and against the slave 
power, and which had stirred to its depths the conscience of 
New England, culminated in the old man's famous victory !i\ 
the repeal of the "gag rule." 

As Mi. Hiiak drew to manhood the air was full of revolt and 
questioning in thought, in literature, in religion, in society, and 
in politics. The dominant note was faith in humanity and in 
the perfectibility of man. Break up impeding, stifling customs, 
strike down vested abuses, set men free to think, to write, to 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 23 

work, to vote as they chose and all would be well. To Mr. 
Hoar, with his strong inheritances, with the powerful influ- 
ences of his family and home, the spirit of the time came with 
an irresistible appeal. It was impossible to him to be deaf to 
its voice or to shut his ears to the poignant cry against oppres- 
sion which sounded through the world of Europe and America 
with a fervor and pathos felt only in the great moments of 
human history. But he was the child of the Puritans. Their 
elemental qualities were in his blood, and the Puritans joined 
to the highest idealism the practical attributes which had made 
them in the days of their glory the greatest soldiers and states- 
men in Europe. Macaulay, in a well-known passage, says of 
Cromwell's soldiers that — 

They moved to victory with the precision of machines, while burning 
with the wildest fanaticism of Crusaders. 

Mr. Hoar, by nature, by inheritance, by ever}- influence of 
time and place, an idealist, had also the strong good sense, the 
practical shrewdness, and the reverence for law and precedent 
which were likewise part of his birthright. He passed through 
college with distinction, went to his brother's office for a year, 
to the Harvard Law School, and thence, in 1849, to Worcester, 
where he cast in his fortune with the young and growing city 
which ever after was to be his home. But his personal for- 
tunes did not absorb him. He looked out on the world about 
him with an eager gaze. As he said in his old age, 
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. 

The profound conviction that every man had a public duty 
was strong within him. The spirit of the time was on him. 
He would fain do his share. When the liberal movement cul- 
minated in Europe in 1848 he was deeply stirred. When, a 
little later, Kossuth came to the United States the impression 



24 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

then made upon him by the cause and the eloquence of the 
great Hungarian sank into his heart and was never effaced. 
He, too, meant to do his part, however humble, in the work of 
his time. He did not content himself with barren sympathy 
for the oppressed beyond the seas, nor did he give himself to 
any of the vague schemes then prevalent for the regeneration 
of society. He turned to the question nearest at hand, to the 
work of redressing what he believed the wrong and the sin of 
his native land — human slavery. He did not join the aboli- 
tionists, but set himself to fight slavery in the effective manner 
which finally brought its downfall — by organized political effort 
within the precincts of the Constitution and the laws. 

Mr. Hoar had been bred a Whig. His first vote in 1S47 was 
for a Whig governor, and Daniel Webster was the close friend 
of his father and brother. He had been brought up on Web- 
ster's reply to Hayne, and as a college student he had heard 
him deliver the second Bunker Hill oration. In that day the 
young Whigs of Massachusetts looked to Webster with an 
adoring admiration. They — 

Followed him, honored him, 
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 
Learned his yrcat language, caught his clear accents. 
Made him their pattern to live and to die. 

But the great command of conscience to Mr. Hoar was to 
resist slavery, and the test of his faith was at hand. He was 
to break from the dominant party of the State. Webster was 
to become to him in very truth "The Lost Leader." He was to 
join with those who called the great Senator "Ichabod," and 
not until he himself was old was he to revert to his young ad- 
miration of that splendid intellect and that unrivaled eloquence. 
But when the ordeal came there was no shrinking. Charles 
Allen, of Worcester, amid derisive shouts, announced at Phila- 
delphia, after the nomination of General Taylor, that the Whig 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 25 

party was dissolved, and Mr. Hoar went with him. After the 
delegates had returned to Massachusetts Mr. Hoar rendered 
his first political service by addressing and mailing a circular 
drawn by his elder brother, E. Rockwood Hoar, which invited 
the antislavery Whigs to meet at Worcester and take steps 
to oppose the election of either General Taylor or of General 
Cass, the Democratic candidate. The convention was held 
in Worcester on June 28, became the Free Soil party, and 
gave their support to Van Buren. The result of the move- 
ment nationally was to defeat the Democrats in New York, as 
the Liberty party had turned the scales against Clay four 
years before. In Massachusetts the Worcester convention 
marked the appearance of a group of young men who were 
to form a new school of statesmen, and who were destined 
to control Massachusetts and to play a leading part in guiding 
the fortunes of the nation for forty years to come. 

The Federalists, who had formed and organized the Govern- 
ment of the United States, and who were essentially construct- 
ive statesmen of great power, had followed the men of the 
Revolution, and in turn had been succeeded by the Whigs. 
Under the lead of Webster and Choate, of Everett and Win- 
throp, and others hardly less distinguished, the Whigs con- 
trolled Massachusetts for a generation. They never had seemed 
stronger, despite Webster's personal discontent, than on the eve 
of Taylor's election. But it was to be their last triumph. The 
men, mostly young, who gathered at Worcester were to displace 
them and themselves take and hold power for nearly forty years. 
There at Worcester, with Samuel Hoar, one of the pioneers of 
earlier days, presiding, were assembled the men of the future. 
Charles Sumner, Charles Francis Adams, Henry Wilson, K. R. 
Hoar, Charles Allen, and Richard H. Dana spoke to the conven- 
tion, while Palfrey the historian, John A. Andrew, then a young, 



26 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

unknown lawyer, and Anson Burlingame, although not present, 
joined with and supported them. These were not only new 
men, but they represented a new political school. The Whigs, 
inheriting the Federalist doctrines of liberal construction, were 
essentially an economic party, devoted to the industrial and 
material development of the country. The men who supplanted 
them were primarily and above all human-rights statesmen, as 
befitted the time. To them the rights of humanity came first 
and all economic questions second. With these men and with 
this school Mr. Hoak united himself heart and soul, swayed 
by the sternest and strongest convictions, for which no sacri- 
fice was too great, no labors too hard. He was perhaps the 
youngest of the men destined to high distinction who met 
in Worcester in [848; he was certainly the last great sur- 
vivor of this remarkable group in the largest fields of national 
statesmanship. 

Thus was the beginning made. The next step was an 
unexpected one. There was a Free-Soil meeting in Worcester 
in 1850. Charles Allen, who was to speak, was late, and a 
cry went up from the impatient audience of ' ' Hoar ! ' ' 
"Hoar!" Neither father nor brother was present, so Mr. 
Hoar took the platform, and speaking from the fullness of 
his heart and with the fervor of his cause, won a success 
which put him in demand for meetings throughout the county. 
The following year he was made chairman of the Free-Soil 
county committee, proved himself a most efficient organizer, 
and carried all but six of the fifty-two towns in the county. 
Then, greatly to his surprise, he was nominated for the legis- 
lature. He accepted, was elected, became the leader of the 
Free Soilers in the house, and distinguished himself there by 
his advocacy of the factory acts limiting the hours of labor, 
in which Massachusetts was the pioneer. He retired at the 



Ac/dnss of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 27 

end of the year for which he had been chosen. In 1 S57 he 
was nominated, again unexpectedly, to the State senate, was 
elected, served one year with marked distinction, and then 
retired, as he had from the house. He had, indeed, no desire 
for office. On coming to Worcester he had been offered a 
partnership by Emory Washburn, soon after governor of the 
State, and later a professor in the Harvard Law School. This 
connection brought him at once into one of the largest prac- 
tices in the county, and his partner's election to the governor- 
ship, which soon followed, gave him entire responsibility for 
the business of the firm. He was not only very busy, but 
he was devoted to his profession, for he possessed legal abili- 
ties of the highest order. Yet he was never too busy to give 
his services freely to the great cause of human rights, which 
he had so much at heart. He labored unceasingly in his 
resistance to slavery and in building up the Republican party, 
which during that time was fast rising into power, both in 
State and nation. 

It is impossible to follow him through those eventful years 
when freedom and slavery clinched in a death struggle far out 
in Kansas and the black clouds of civil war were gathering 
darkly on the horizon. But there are two incidents of that 
period which illustrate Mr. Hoar's character so strongly that 
they can not be passed over. In 1854 the Know Nothing 
movement broke out with all the force of a tropical hurricane. 
To men painfully struggling to bring a great cause to judgment 
against the resistance of the old and dominant parties it offered 
many temptations. The new party was overwhelming in its 
strength; it evidently could not last indefinitely; it was sound 
on the slavery question, and it promised to act as a powerful 
solvent and disintegrate the old organizations which every Free 
Soiler rightly thought was vital to their own success. But Mr. 



28 Life and Character oj George F. Hoar 

Hoar, unmoved by the storm, believing in freedom of con- 
science as he believed in political freedom, set himself in stern 
opposition to a party which rested on the principle of discrimi- 
nation and ostracism against all men of a certain race or of a 
given creed. No public clamor then or ever was able to sway 
him from those ideals of faith and conduct which were the 
guiding stars of his life. 

The other incident was widely different and even more char- 
acteristic. If there was one thing more hateful to Mr. Hoar 
than another in those days it was the return of runaway slaves 
to the South by the authorities of Northern States. Massachu- 
setts was the scene of some of the worst examples of this bad 
business, and the wrath of the people was deeply stirred. In 
[854 a deputy marshal connected with the work of slave catch- 
mi; arrived in Worcester. His presence became known, and 
an angry mob, utterly uncontrollable by the little police force 
of the town, gathered about the hotel. The man was in immi- 
nent danger and stricken with terror. No one loathed a slave 
catcher more than Mr. Hoar, but the idealist gave way to the 
lover of law and ordered liberty. Mr. Hoar went out and 
addressed the crowd, then gave his arm to the terrified man, 
walked with him down the street, surrounded by a few friends, 
and so got him to the station ami out of the town, bruised 
by blows but alive and in safety. 

So the years of that memorable time went by. Mr. Hoar 
worked diligently in his profession, rising to the front rank of 
the bar and laboring in season and out of season in support of 
the Republican party and of the Administration of Lincoln 
when the civil war came. He had neither thought nor desire 
for public life or public office. He wished to succeed in his 
profession, to live quietly at home among his books, and he 
cherished the modest ambition of one day becoming a judge 



.-{//(//ess of Mr. Lodge, oj Massachusetts 29 

of the supreme court of the State. But it was ordered other- 
wise. Iu 1868 Mr. Hoar went to Europe, worn out by hard 
work at his profession. There were at the moment many 
candidates for the nomination for Congress in the Worcester 
district, and most of them were strong and able men. In this 
condition of affairs Mr. Hoak consented to let some of his 
friends bring his name forward, and then took his departure 
for Europe. Travel and rest brought back his health and he 
returned home eager for his profession, regretting that he had 
allowed his name to be suggested as that of a candidate for 
any position, only to find himself nominated for Congress on 
the first ballot taken in the convention. So his life in Wash- 
ington began, with no desire or expectation on his part of a 
sen-ice of more than one or two terms. At the end of his 
second term he announced his intention of withdrawing and 
was persuaded to reconsider it. The fourth time he was 
obliged again to withdraw a refusal to run because it was a 
year of peril to the party. The next time the refusal was 
filial and his successor was nominated and elected. 

His eight years in the House were crowded with work. He 
began with a very moderate estimate of his own capacities, 
but his power of eloquent speech and his knowledge and ability 
as a lawyer soon brought him forward. When S. S. Cox 
sneered at him one day, saying "Massachusetts had not sent 
her Hector to the field," and Mr. Hoar replied that there was 
no need to send Hector to meet Thersites, the House recog- 
nized a quick and biting wit, of which it was well to beware. 

When Mr. Hoar entered the House Congress was engaged 
in completing the work which by the war and the emancipation 
of the slaves had marked the triumph of that mighty struggle 
for human freedom to which he had given his youth and early 
manhood. He was therefore absorbed in the questions raised 



30 Life and Character <>/ George F. Hoar 

by the reconstruction policy, which involved the future of the 
race he had hoped to free, and he labored especially in the 

interests (if that race for the establishment of national educa- 
tion, which, after years of effort constantly renewed, ultimately 
failed of accomplishment. But the civil war, besides its great 
triumphs of a Union preserved and a race set free, had left also 
the inevitable legacy of such convulsions, great social and 
political demoralization in all parts of the country and in all 
phases of public ami private life. Political patronage ran riot 
among the offices and made Mr. Hoar one of the most ardent, 
as he was one of the earliest and most effective, of civil-service 
reformers. Unhappily, however, the poison of the time pene- 
trated much higher in the body politic than the small routine 
offices so sorely misused under the "spoils system." It was 
an era when Cabinet officers and part} - leaders were touched 
and smirched and when one Congressional investigation fol- 
lowed hard upon another. Mr. Hoar's keenness as a lawyer, 
his power as a cross-examiner, and his fearless and indignant 
honesty caused the House to turn to him for this work of 
punishment and purification, which was as painful as it was 
necessary. He was a member of the committee to investigate 
the Freedmen's Bureau, and took part in the report which 
exonerated General Howard. He was one of the House 
managers in the Belknap trial and the leading member of the 
committee which investigated the Union Pacific Railroad and 
the scandals of the Credit Mobilier. 

But his greatest and most distinguished service came to him 
just as his career in the House was drawing to a close. The 
demoralization of the war, the working out of reconstruction, 
the abnormal conditions which war and reconstruction together 
had produced, culminated in 1876 in a disputed Presidential 
election. Into the events of that agitated winter it is needless 



Address of Mr. Lodge^ of Massachusetts 31 

and impossible to enter. The situation was in the highest de- 
gree perilous, and everyone recognized that a grave crisis had 
arisen in the history of the Republic. Finally an electoral tri- 
bunal was established which settled the controversy and re- 
moved the danger. Upon that tribunal Mr. Hoak was placed 
by a Democratic Speaker as one of the representatives of the 
House, and this appointment alone was sufficient to fix his place 
as one of the political leaders of the country. With this great 
and responsible task accomplished, his career in the House 
drew to a close. Yet even while he was thus engaged a new 
and larger service came to him by his election to the Senate. 
He was then, as when he entered the House, without desire 
for public office. He still longed to return to his library and 
his profession and allow the pleasures and honors as well as the 
trials of public life to pass by. But again it was not to be. 
There was at that time a strong and deep-rooted opposition to 
the dominance of General Butler in the politics of Massachu- 
setts, and this opposition, determined to have a Senator in full 
sympathy with them, took up Mr. Hoar as their candidate 
and, without effort or even desire on his part, elected him. 

So he passed from the House to the Senate. He entered the 
Senate a leader, and a leader he remained to the end, ever 
growing in strength and influence, ever filling a larger place, 
until he was recognized everywhere as one of the first of Amer- 
ican statesmen, until his words were listened to by all his 
countrymen, until there gathered about him the warm light of 
history, and men saw when he rose in debate — 
The past of the nation in battle there. 

Neither time nor the occasion permits me to trace in fitting 
detail that long and fine career in the Senate. Mr. Hoak was 
a great Senator. He brought to his service an intense patriot- 
ism, a trained intellect, wide learning, a profound knowledge 



32 Life and t 'haracter of George F. Hoar 

of law and history, an unsullied character, and noble abilities. 
All these gifts he expended without measure <>r stint in his 
country's service. His industry was extraordinary and unceas- 
ing. Whatever he spared in life, he never spared himself in 
the performance of his public duty. The laws settling the 
Presidential succession, providing for the count of the electoral 
vote, for the final repeal of the tenure-of-office act, for a unifi >rm 
system of bankruptcy, are among the more conspicuous monu- 
ments of his industry and energy and of his power as a con- 
structive lawmaker and statesman. Xor did his activity cease 
with the work of the Senate. He took a large part in public 
discussion in every political campaign and in the politics of his 
own State. He was a delegate to four national conventions, a 
leading figure in all. and in 1880 he presided at Chicago, with 
extraordinary power, tact, and success, over the stormiest con- 
vention, with a single exception, known to our history. 

In the vSenate he was a great debater, quick in retort, with all 
the resources of his mind always at his command. Although 
he had no marked gifts of presence, voice, or delivery, he was 
none the less a master of brilliant and powerful speech. His 
style was noble and dignified, with a touch of the stateliness of 
the eighteenth century, rich in imagery and allusion, full of the 
apt quotations which an unerriug taste, an iron memory, and 
the widest reading combined to furnish. When he was roused, 
when his imagination was fired, his feelings engaged, or his 
indignation awakened, he was capable of a passionate eloquence 
which touched every chord of emotion and left no one who lis- 
tened to him unmoved. At these moments, whether he spoke 
on the floor of the Senate, in the presence of a great popular 
audience, or in the intimacy of private conversation, the words 
glowed, the sentences marshaled themselves in stately sequence, 
and the idealism which was the dominant note of his life was 



Address of Mr. Lodge, <>/ Massachusetts 33 

heard sounding clear and strong above and beyond all pleas of 
interest or expediency. 

So we come back to the light which shone upon his earlv 
A-ears and which never failed him to the last. Mr. Hoar 
was born in the period of revolt. He joined the human- 
rights statesmen of that remarkable time. He shared in 
their labors; he saw the once unpopular cause rise up victo- 
rious through the stress and storm of battle; he beheld the 
visions of his youth change into realities and his country 
emerge triumphant from the awful ordeal of civil war. He 
came into public life in season to join in completing the 
work of the men who had given themselves up to the 
destruction of slavery and the preservation of the Union. 
But even then the mighty emotions of those terrible years 
were beginning to subside. The seas which had been run- 
ning mountain high were going down, the tempestuous winds 
before which the ship of state had driven for long years were 
dropping and bid fair to come out from another quarter. 
The country was passing into a new political period. Ques- 
tions involving the rights of men and the wrongs of humanity 
gave place throughout the world of western civilization to 
those of trade and commerce, of tariffs and currency and 
finance. The world returned to a period when the issues 
were economic, industrial, and commercial, and when the 
vast organizations of capital and labor opened up a new 
series of problems. In the United States, as the issues of 
the war faded into the distance and material prosperity was 
carried to heights undreamed of before, the nation turned 
inevitably from the completed conquest of its own continent 
to expansion beyond its borders, and to the assertion of a 
control and authority which were its due among the great 
powers of the earth. Many years before Mr. Hoar's death 
S. Doc. 201, 58-3 3 



34 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

the change was complete, and he found himself a leader in 
the midst of a generation whose interests and whose concep- 
tions differed widely from those to which his own life had 
been devoted. He took up the new questions with the same 
zeal and the same power which he had brought to the old. 
He made himself master of the tariff, aided thereto by his 
love of the great industrial community which he had seen 
grow up about him at Worcester, and whose success he 
attributed to the policy of protection. In the same way he 
studied, reflected upon, and discussed problems of banking 
and currency and the conflict of standards. Rut at bottom 
all these questions were alien to him. However thoroughly 
he mastered them, however wisely he dealt with them, thej r 
never touched his heart. His inheritance of sound sense, 
of practical intelligence, of reverence for precedent, rendered 
it easy for him to appreciate and understand the value and 
importance of matters involving industrial prosperity and the 
growth of trade; but the underlying idealism made these 
questions at the same time seem wholly inferior to the 
nobler aspirations upon which his youth was nurtured. An 
idealist he was born, and so he lived and died. Neither 
skepticism nor experience could chill the hopes or dim the 
visions of his young manhood. He was imbued with the 
profound and beautiful faith in humanity characteristic of 
that earlier time. He lived to find himself in an atmosphere 
where this faith was invaded by doubt and questioning. 

How much that great movement, driven forward by faith in 
humanity and hope for its future, to which Mr. Hoar gave all 
that was best of his youth and manhood, accomplished, it is not 
easy to estimate. It is enough to say that the results were vast 
in their beneficence. But the wrongs and burdens which it 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 35 

swept away were known by the sharp experience of actual suf- 
fering only to the generations which had endured them. The 
succeeding generation haddiever felt the hardships and oppres- 
sions which had perished, but were keenly alive to all the evils 
which survived. Hence the inevitable tendency to doubt the 
worth of any great movement which has come, done its work, 
and gone, asserted itself; for there are no social or political 
panaceas, although mankind never ceases to look for them and 
expect them. To a period of enthusiasm, aspiration, and faith. 
resulting in great changes and in great benefits t<> humanity, a 
period of skepticism and reaction almost always succeeds. The 
work goes on, what has been accomplished is made sure, much 
good is done, but the spirit of the age alters. 

The new generation inclined to the view of science and his- 
tory that there were ineradicable differences between the races 
of men. They questioned the theory that opportunity was 
equivalent to capacity; they refused to believe that a people 
totally ignorant or to whom freedom and self-government were 
unknown could carry on successfully the complex machinery of 
constitutional and representative government which it had cost 
the English-speaking peoples centuries of effort and training t'> 
bring forth. To expect this seemed to the new time as unrea- 
sonable as to believe that an Ashantee could regulate a watch 
because it was given to him, or an Arruwhimi dwarf run a loco- 
motive to anything but wreck because the lever was placed in 
his hands. Through all these shifting phases of thought and 
feeling Mr. Hoar remained unchanged, a man of '48, his ideals 
unaltered, his faith in the quick perfectibility of humanity 
unshaken, his hopes for the world of men still glowing with the 
warmth and light of eager youth. And when all is said, when 
science and skepticism and experience have spoken their last 



36 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

word, the ideals so cherished by him still stand as noble and 
inspiring as the faith upon which they rested was beautiful and 
complete. The man who steered his course by stars like these 
could never lose his reckoning or be at variance with the eter- 
nal verities which alone can lift us from the earth. His own 
experience, moreover, although mingled with disappointments, 
as is the common fate of man, could but confirm his faith and 
hope. He had dreamed dreams and seen visions in his youth,. 
but he had beheld those dreams turn to reality and those 
visions come true in a manner rarely vouchsafed. He had seen 
the slave freed and the Union saved. He had shared with his 
countrymen in their marvelous mi ward march to prosperity and 
power. He had seen rise up from the revolt of 1848 a free and 
united Italy, a united Germany, a French Republic, a free 
Hungary. He would have been a cynic and a skeptic indeed if 
he had wavered in his early faith. And so his ideals and the 
triumphs they had won made him full of confidence and cour- 
age, even to the end. He, too, could say: 

I find earth nut gray, but rosy; 

Heaven not ,nrhn, but fair of hue. 
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. 

!)<> I stand and stare" All's blue. 

This splendid optimism, this lofty faith in his country, tltis 
belief in humanity never failed. They were with him in his 
boyhood; they were still with him, radiant and vital, in the 
days when he lay dying in Worcester. It was all part of his 
philosophy of life, knit in the fibers of his being and pervading 
his most sacred beliefs. To him the man who could not 
recognize the limitations of life on earth was as complete a 
failure as the man who, knowing the limitations, sat down 
content among them. To him the man who knew the limita- 
tions but ever strove toward the perfection he could not reach 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 37 

was the victorious soul, the true servant of God. As Browning 
wrote in his old age, he, too, might have said that he was — 

One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, 

Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, 

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake. 

He had an unusually fortunate and happy life. He was 
fortunate in the knowledge of great work done, happy in 
never knowing idleness or the distress of wondering painfully 
how to pass away the short time allowed to us here, or the 
miserable craving for constant excitement so marked at the 
present moment. His vacations were filled, as were his working 
hours. He traveled wisely and well, and the Old World spoke 
to him as she only does to those who know her history. He 
was a lover of nature. He rejoiced in the beauties of hill and 
stream and forest, of sea and sky, and delighted to. watch the 
flight of the eagle or listen to the note of the song birds in 
whose name he wrote the charming petition which brought 
them the protection of the law in Massachusetts. 

He was a scholar in the wide, generous, unspecialized sense 
of an older and more leisurely age than this. His Greek and 
Latin went with him through life, and the great poets and 
dramatists and historians of antiquity were his familiar friends. 
His knowledge of English literature was extraordinary, as 
extensive as it was minute and curious. His books were his 
companions, an unfailing resource, a pleasure never exhausted. 
To him history had unrolled her ample page, and as antiquarian 
and collector he had all the joys which come from research and 
from the gradual acquisition of those treasures which appeal to 
the literary, the historic, or the artistic sense. 

Any man of well-balanced mind who is wedded to high 
ideals is sure to possess a great loyalty of soul. It is from 



38 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

such men that martyrs have been made, the true martyrs 
whose blood has been the seed of churches and across whose 
fallen bodies great causes have marched to triumph. But it is 
also from men of this stamp, whose minds are warped, that 
the fanatics, the unreasoning and mischievous extremists like- 
wise come, those who at best only ring an alarm bell, and 
who usually are thoroughly harmful, not only to the especial 
cause they champion, but to all other good causes, which they 
entirely overlook. There is, therefore, no slight peril in the 
temperament of the thorough going idealist, unless it is bal- 
anced and controlled, as it was with Mr. Hoar, by sound 
sense and by an appreciation of the relation which the idealist 
and his ideals bear to the universe at large. It was said of a 
brilliant contemporary of Mr. Hoar, like him an idealist, that 
"if he had lived in the Middle Ages, he would have gone to 
the stake for a principle under a misapprehension as to the 
facts." Mr. Hoar would have gone to the stake socially, 
politically, and physically rather than yield certain profound 
beliefs. But if he had made this last great sacrifice, he would 
have known just what he was doing and would have been 
under in > misapprehension as to the facts. 

Loyalty to his ideals, moreover, was not his onlv loyalty. 
He was by nature a partisan; he could not hold faiths or take 
sides lightly or indifferently. He loved the great party he had 
helped to found in that strongest of all ways, with an open 
eyed and not a blind affection. He more than once differed 
from his party; he sometimes opposed it on particular meas 
ures; he once, at least, parted with it on a great national issue; 
but he never would leave it; he never faltered in its support. 
He believed that two great parties were essential bulwarks of 
responsible representative government. He felt that a man 
could do far more and far better by remaining in his party, 
even if he thought it wrong in some one particular, than by 



Address of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 39 

going outside and becoming a inert snarling critic No man 
respected and cherished genuine independence more than he, 
and no man more heartily despised those who gave to hatred, 
malice, and all uncharitableness the honored name of inde- 
pendence. Nothing could tear him from the great organiza- 
tion he had helped and labored to build up. If anyone had 
ever tried to drive him out, he would have spoken to Republi- 
cans as Webster did to the Whigs in 1N4.2 at Faneuil Hall, 
when he said: 

I am a Whig; I always have been a Whig, and I always will be one; 
and if there are any who would turn me out of tin- pale of that com- 
munion, let them see who will get out first. 

Mr. Hoar's high ideals and unswerving loyalty were not 
confined to public life and public duty. Hewasnot'of those 
who raise lofty standards in the eyes of the world and then 
lower and forget them in the privacy of domestic life and in 
the beaten way of friendship. He was brought up in days 
when ' ' plain living and high thinking ' ' was not the mere 
phrase which it has since become, but a real belief, and to 
that belief he always adhered. He cast away a large income 
and all hope of wealth for the sake of the public service. 
He had no faculty for saving money and no desire to attempt it. 
If he made a large fee in an occasional case, if his pen brought 
him a handsome reward, it all went in books or pictures, in the 
hospitality he loved to exercise, and in the most private chari- 
ties, always far beyond his means. He once said that he had 
been more than thirty years in public life and all he had accu- 
mulated was a few books. But there was no bitterness, no repin- 
ing in the words. He respected riches wisely used for the public 
good, but he was as free from vulgar admiration as he was from 
the equally vulgar hatred of wealth. He was, in a word, simply 
indifferent to the possession of money — a fine attitude, never 
more worth)- of consideration and respect than in these very days. 



40 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

His love for his native laud was an intense and mastering 
emotion. His country rose before his imagination like some 
goddess of the infant world, the light of hope shining in her 
luminous eyes, a sweet smile upon her lips, the sword of justice 
in her fearless hand, her broad shield stretched out to shelter 
the desolate and oppressed. Before that gracious vision he 
bowed his head in homage. His family and friends — Massa- 
setts, Concord, Harvard College, Worcester — he loved and 
served them all with a passion and affection in which there was 
no shadow of turning. His pride in the Senate, in its history 
and its power, and his affection for it were only excelled by his 
jealous care for its dignity and its prerogatives. He might at 
times criticise its actions, but he would permit no one else to 
do so or to reflect in his presence upon what he regarded as the 
greatest legislative body ever devised by man, wherein the 
ambassadors of sovereign States met together to guard and to 
advance the fortunes of the Republic. Beneath a manner 
sometimes cold, sometimes absent-minded,- often indifferent, 
beat niiL' of the tenderest hearts in the world. He had known 
many men in his day — all the great public men, all the men of 
science, of letters, or of art — and his judgments upon them 
were just and generous, yet at the same time shrewd, keen, 
and by no means overlenient. But when he had once taken 
a man within the circle of his affections he idealized him imme- 
diately; there was thenceforth no fleck or spot upon him, and 
he would describe him in glowing phrases which depicted a 
being whom the world perhaps did not know or could not rec- 
ognize. It was easy to smile at some of his estimates of those 
who were dear to him, but we can only bow in reverence 
before the love and loyalty which inspired the thought — for 
these are beautiful qualities which can never go out of fashion. 

He was a fearless and ready fighter; he struck hard and did 
not flinch from the return. His tongue could utter bitter 



Addz-css of Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts 41 

words, which fell like a whip and left a scar behind, but he 
cherished no resentments, he nursed no grudges. As the 
shadows lengthened he softened, and grew ever gentler and 
more tolerant. The caustic wit gave place more and more to 
the kindly humor which was one of his greatest attributes. In 
the latter days he would fain have been at peace with all men, 
and he sought only for that which was good in everyone about 
him. He died in the fullness of years, with his affections 
unchilled, his fine intellect undimmed. He met death with 
the calm courage with which he had faced the trials of life. 

He took his shriveled hand without resistance 
And found him smiling as his step drew near. 

So he passed from among us, a man of noble character and 
high abilities. He did a great work; he lived to the full the 
life of his time. He was a great Senator — a great public 
servant laboring to aid his fellow-men and to uplift humanity. 

He has fought a good fight, he has finished his course, he has kept the 
faith. 

May we not say of him, in the words of one of the poets who 

inspired his imagination, in the noble language he so dearly 

loved: 

Koivbv zoS' axwi Tta6i noXiraii 

TloW&iv daKpvoav eGrai itirvXoi 
TSbv yap uEydXa>v diiomvftiii 
$fjuai /idXXoi' Karixov6iv . 

On all this folk, both low and high, 

A grief has fallen beyond men's fears. 

There cometh a throbbing of many tears, 

A sound as of waters falling. 

For when great men die, 

A mighty name and a bitter cry 

Rise up from a nation calling. 

NOTE.— This English version of the last chorus in the Hippolytus of 
Euripides is taken from the remarkable and very beautiful translation 
of that tragedy by Professor Murray. 



42 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Allison, of Iowa 

Mr. President: I have listened with profound interest and 
with much gratification to the address just delivered by the 
senior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Lodge] , portraying 
the story of the life, character, and public services of his late 
colleague, Senator George Frisbie Hoar. That character 
was a great one. and it has been so eloquently depicted by the 
Senator from Massachusetts that it seems almost impossible 
for anyone else to add to that beautiful tribute. I regret that, 
with the occupations and duties pressing upon me at this late 
stage of the session, I have not had time to make the neces-.ar\ 
preparation for speaking as I should like to speak of the dis- 
tinguished public services rendered by the late Senator Hoar 
in the two Houses of Congress, covering a continuous period 
of thirty-five years. I can not. however, refrain from express- 
ing in brief terms my appreciation of those services and 
offering what must necessarily he an imperfect tribute to his 
memory. 

I was fortunate enough to be a Member of the House of 
Representatives when Mr. Hoar first appeared in that body 
in [869. He entered the Housl- fully equipped for the great 
work of the period immediately following the close of the 
civil war, having previously enjoyed unusual advantages and 
opportunities. He came of a long line of ancestry of educated 
and scholarly men, who had achieved distinction in his native 
State. He had the advantage of an intellectual training in 
the oldest and most distinguished university in our country, 
and in his early youth had not only in his own family, but 



Address of Mr. Allison^ of Iowa 43 

among his immediate surroundings, the example and influence 
of many illustrious scholars and writers. Reared in an atmos- 
phere of "plain living and high thinking," of right speaking 
and right acting, he had formed lofty ideals of private conduct 
and public duty. 

He entered upon the practice of his chosen profession of the 
law, and soon after had the good fortune to become associated 
with one of the most distinguished members of the New 
England bar, which brought him at once into great activity 
as a lawyer in the courts. 

Thus equipped, he entered upon the work of the House of 
Representatives. A close student of the history of our country, 
he was familiar with the public questions that confronted him 
and was equally familiar with the details of the events which 
brought about the then existing conditions. Having great 
ability and large experience as a lawyer, and entering the 
House at the mature age of 43 years, it was expected that he 
would soon take high rank in that body. This expectation 
was fully realized. He early became one of the ablest and 
most conspicuous Members of the House, and participated 
actively in the enactment of legislation to solve the difficult 
problems which were from time to time presented. 

His leadership in the House was early recognized by his 
assignment to most important duties; notably, he was a leading 
manager in the Belknap impeachment trial in 1876. He was 
also one of the members, on the part of the House, of the Elec- 
toral Commission of 1877, the decisions of which resulted in 
the peaceful inauguration of President Hayes and averted wdiat 
then appeared to be a most dangerous situation arising from a 
defect or omission in the law respecting the method of counting 
the electoral votes for President and Vice-President. Although 
in the heat of partisan debate the decisions of the Commission 



44 Life ami Character of George F. Hoar 

were for a time criticized, it is now generally admitted that the 
whole scheme as respects the creation of the Commission and 
its decisions meet the general approval of the people of our 
country as the wisest and best mode of adjusting that emergent 
difficulty, which is not likely to occur in the future. 

He took his seat in the Senate on the 4th of March, [877, 
and brought with him the added reputation and distinction 
achieved in his eight years of service in the House. He served 
here continuously until the date of his death, for a period of 
more than twenty-seven years. 

His service here was constant, active, and vigilant; and with- 
out disparagement of any of the eminent men who served with 
him during this long period, it may be truthfully said that, 
compared with him, there were few. if any, who brought to 
this service higher ideals of public duty, greater industry in 
public work, greater learning as respects the structure of our 
Government, or a wider knowledge of its constitutional history 
and the successive steps in its growth and development. 

He was a ready and incisive debater, as many of us have 
reason to remember, with great power of analysis, and with 
a very accurate knowledge of almost every conceivable sub- 
ject that was likely to arise in debate. He was quick to 
detect the weak points in the armor of his adversary, and 
being himself armed with rapier and scimiter he was always 
ready to thrust or parry a blow. 

He made manv speeches in the Senate on many subjects. 
He readily utilized lhs wide knowledge of history as appli- 
cable to the particular matter under consideration. He often 
made studied preparation fur such efforts; but with wide read- 
ing, a well-stored mind, and a most retentive memory, he 
made main' able and effective speeches without such prepa- 
ration. Manv Senators will recollect that some of the ablest 



Address of Mr. Allison, of Iowa 45 

speeches made by Senator Hoar were delivered in executive 
session when great topics were under consideratiou. 

Senator Hoar was an orator. He had the power of utter- 
ing his thoughts in a manner to produce conviction or per- 
suasion. He charmed his hearers with the wealth and beauty 
of his rhetoric and diction. 

From his early life he was a believer in universal freedom 
and in the mission of our country to make laws universal in 
their application as respects the people of all races, giving 
equal opportunities to all. Thus for years he advocated the 
appropriation of public money from the Treasury of the 
United States for the education of the negro race in the South 
in order to qualify that race for the duties of citizenship. 
His eloquent advocacy of that duty of our Government may 
yet in time appeal convincingly to legislators who are here 
and those who may come hereafter. 

He believed that our country was intended to be an asy- 
lum for all oppressed peoples, and therefore he opposed all 
laws prohibiting immigration of particular races, and espe- 
cially opposed the enactment of the laws prohibiting Chinese 
immigration into our countr}-, but later yielded to the gen- 
eral sentiment on that subject. I think one of the ablest 
speeches that has been delivered on this floor was a speech 
made by Senator Hoar in opposition to the enactment of a pro- 
posed law for the prohibition of the immigration of Chinese. 

We all remember how earnestly he opposed the entire scheme 
for control over the Philippine Archipelago. He believed that 
those people should be left to work out their own destiny in 
such manner as to them seemed wisest and best, differing in 
that respect from the great majority of his party, and possibly 
from a great majority of the people of the country. But he 
was also a partisan. He believed that the great interests of 



.)'> Life and Character oj George F. Hoar 

this country could be more safely intrusted to the Republican 
party than to any other. Therefore he steadily adhered to 
that party, though differing from it in respect to some of its 
declared public policies, of which I have given a notable 
illustration. 

Senator Hoak was an industrious man — always investiga- 
ting, working, thinking, writing, and speaking upon subjects 
of great interest. His Recollections disclose this trait in his 
character to a marked degree, but it was illustrated in other 
ways. During his vacations he prepared with care and deliv- 
ered many speeches and orations upon topics of general interest 
not political in character. Those speeches would make a most 
interesting and instructive volume, and I hope that at no dis- 
tant day they will be gathered into a volume for the benefit of 
students of our history. 

Those speeches were often of a historical character, and 
disclosed that in their preparation he had delved into obscure 
records and gathered incidents not found in published papers. 
His oration at the centennial of the settlement of Ohio, deliv- 
ered at Marietta, is a notable illustration of this painstaking 
preparation, and is the most complete history of that early 
settlement which has been written, so far as I have been able 
to observe. 

During the last years of his life, though feeble in health, he- 
made several speeches of this character, to one of which I wish 
to make particular allusion. Two years ago the president of 
the Iowa State University made a journey to Washington with 
a message from the regents of the university inviting Senator 
Hoak to deliver the oration at their annual commencement in 
19113. That invitation was extended to Senator Hoak on 
account of the general admiration of his lofty character and 
his great public worth. He expressed a wish to comply with 



Address of Mr. Allison, of Iowa 47 

the request, but doubted whether he had the health and 
strength to make preparation and also to make the journey. 
He was finally persuaded to accept. On that occasion he 
delivered a most charming and finished oration relative to the 
growth and development of the country west of the Mississippi 
River. It is now and will lie for many years one of the must 
pleasant memories of the people of our State who heard him 
that they had that rare opportunity of listening to his 
eloquence. 

At the time of his death he .iad the respect and the affec- 
. tion of all the people whom he had long served faithfully 
and well. 

Mr. President, I repeat that it is to me a source of sincere 
regret that, owing to the pressure of public duties, I have been 
prevented from making the proper preparation to pay fitting 
tribute to the memory of this illustrious man. I knew him 
personally during the entire term of his service in both Houses 
of Congress, and I am most happy to say that during that 
extended period we were always upon the most pleasant and 
agreeable terms of frieudship. 



4 s Life and Character of George F. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Cockrell, of Missouri 

Mr. President: I willingly unite with others in this Cham- 
ber in paying just tribute to the memory of Hon. George 
Frisbie Hoar, late a United States Senator from the State 
of Massachusetts. 

He was born at Concord, Mass., August 29, 1826, and died 
on the 30th day of September, 1904. He graduated at Har- 
vard College in 1S46, studied law and graduated at the Dane 
Law .School, Harvard University, and entered upon the prac- 
tice of his chosen profession at Worcester, Mass., thereafter 
his residence. He was elected a member of the State house 
of representatives in 1852, and of the State senate in 1857, 
and subsequently served as a Representative in the Forty- 
first, Forty-second, Forty-third, and Forty-fourth Congresses, 
serving continuously for eight years, and declined a renom- 
ination for Representative in the Forty-fifth Congress. 

He was elected as a Republican to the United States Sen- 
ate to succeed Hon. George S. Boutwell, for the term begin- 
ning March 4, 1S77, and was reelected in 18S3, 1S89, 1895, 
and 1 901. His term would have expired March 3, 1907. 
He was an overseer of Harvard College 1 874-1 SSo, declined 
reelection, but was reelected in 1S96, and again fur six vears 
in 1900. He was president of the association of the alumni 
of Harvard. 

He presided over the Massachusetts State Republican con- 
ventions in 1871, i> s 77. 1882, and [885, ami was a delegate to 
the Republican national conventions of iSjd, at Cincinnati, 
and of 1880, 1884, and 1888 at Chicago. Presided over the 



Address of Mr. Cockrell, of Missouri 49 

convention of 1880, and was chairman of the Massachusetts 
delegation in 1880, 1884, and 188S. In the Forty-fourth Con- 
gress he was one of the managers on the part of the House 
of Representatives in the Belknap impeachment trial in 1876. 
In 1877 he was one of the five Members of the House of 
Representatives appointed on the commission authorized by 
the act of January 29, 1877, entitled "An act to provide for 
and regulate the counting of votes for President and Vice- 
President and the decision of questions arising thereon for 
the term commencing March 4, A. I). 1877." 

He was a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution in 1880; 
president of the American Antiquarian Society, of the Ameri- 
can Historical Association, and of the board of trustees of 
Clark University; trustee of the Peabody Museum of Archae- 
ology and of Leicester Academy; a member of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society, of the American Historical Society, 
of the Historic-Genealogical Society, and of the Virginia His- 
torical Society; fellow of the American Academy of Arts 
and Sciences, and corresponding member of the Brooklyn 
Institute of Arts and Sciences, and a trustee of the Peabody 
Fund. 

He received the degree of doctor of laws from William 
and Mary, Amherst, Vale, Harvard, and Dartmouth colleges. 
These many positions of trust and honor conferred upon 
and held by him illustrate the diversity of his pursuits and 
attainments. 

In the Forty-first Congress Mr. Hoar supported Senator 
Sumner in his opposition to President Grant's Santo Domingo 
proposal, and was recognized as a formidable antagonist in 
debate. 

In the Forty-second Congress Mr. Hoar, in the contested- 
election cases in the House, was regarded as an impartial 
S. Doc. 201, 58-3 4 



5<~> Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

judge and honored as such by Republicans and Democrats 
alike. 

My personal acquaintance with Mr. Hoar began in the 
Forty-fourth Congress, when he was one of the managers on 
the part of the House in the Belknap impeachment trial. I 
shall never forget his denunciation of corruption and bribery 
in office, so forcibly and fearlessly expressed in the following 
language in his pleading before the impeachment court (I 
quote from his Autobiography of Seventy Years): 

I said a little while aye that the Constitution had ii" safeguards to 
throw away. You will judge whether the public events of to-dav 
admonish us to look well to all our securities to prevent or power to pun- 
ish the great guilt of corruption in office. We must not confound idle 
clamor with public opinion, or accept the accusations of scandal and malice 
instead of proof; but we shall make a worse mistake if. because of the 
multitude c if false and groundless charges against men in high office, we 
fail to redress substantial grievances or to deal with cases of actual guilt. 
The worst evil resulting from the indiscriminate attack of an unscrupulous 
press upon men in public station is not that innocence suffers, but that 
crime escapes. Let scandal and malice be encountered by pure and stain- 
less lives. Let corruption anil bribery meet their lawful punishment. 

My own public life has been a very brief and insignificant one. extend- 
ing little beyond the duration of a single term of Senatorial office; but in 
that brief period I have seen five judges of a high court of the United 
States driven from office by threats of impeachment for maladministra- 
tion. I have heard the taunt, from friendliest lips, that when the United 
States presented herself in the East to take part with the civilized world 
in generous competition in the arts of life the only product of her institu- 
tions in which she surpassed all others beyond question was her corrup- 
tion. I have seen, in the State in the Union foremost in power and wealth, 
four judges of her courts impeached for corruption and the political admin- 
istration of her chief city become a disgrace and a byword throughout the 
world. I have seen the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs 
in the House, now a distinguished member of this court, rise in his place 
and demand the expulsion of four of his associates for making sale of their 
official privilege of selecting the youths to be educated at our great mili- 
tary school. When the greatest railroad of the world, binding together 
the continent and uniting two great seas which wash our shores, was 
finished, I have seen our national triumph and exultation turned to bitter- 
ness and shame by the unanimous reports of three committees of Con- 
gress — two of the House and one here — th.it every step of that mighty 



Address of Mr. Cockrell, of Missouri 51 

enterprise had been taken in fraud. I have heard in highest places the 
shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office that the true 
way by which power should be gained in the Republic is to bribe the 
people with the offices created for their service, and the true end for which 
it should be used when gained is the promotion of selfish ambition and 
the gratification of personal revenge. I have heard that suspicion haunts 
the footsteps of the trusted companions of the President. 

These things have passed into history. The Hallam or the Tacitus or 
the Sismondi or the Macaulay who writes the annals of our time will 
record them with his inexorable pen. And now, when a high Cabinet 
officer, the constitutional adviser of the Executive, flees from office before 
charges of corruption, shall the historian add that the .Senate treated the 
demand of the people for its judgment of condemnation as a farce, and 
laid down its high functions before the sophistries and jeers of the crim- 
inal lawyer? .Shall he speculate about the petty political calculations as 
to the effect on one party or the other which induced his judges to connive 
at the escape of the great public criminal 1 ( ir, on the other hand, shall he 
close the chapter by narrating how these things were detected, reformed, 
and punished by constitutional processes which the wisdom of our fathers 
devised for us, and the virtue and purity of the people found their vindi- 
cation in the justice of the Senate? 

Mr. Hoar took his seat in this Senate- on the 5th day of 
March, 1877, and was assigned to the Committee on Claims, 
among other committee assignments. I served on the Com- 
mittee on Claims with him for years. He did his full share of 
the onerous duties of that committee, and clearly demonstrated 
his incorruptible integrity and impartial judgment. 

We became warm personal friends, and I admired and loved 
him for his many noble traits of character, and realized that 
whatever might be our difference in views and judgment he 
was honest, sincere, and conscientious. 

He rendered valuable services on many important committees 
of the Senate, such as the Committee on Claims, Privileges and 
Elections, Judiciary, Library, and others. He was, in the full- 
est sense of the term, a learned man, possessed of varied and 
diversified attainments, and always a close student of all exist- 
ing conditions of our country, nationally and internationally. 
He was probably the best informed on historical questions of 



5-2 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

am member of this body. While broad in his sympathies, he 
was always alert in the interests and reputation of his native 
State. It is related of him that while a Member of the House 
the late Hun. S. S. Cox made some reflections upon the Bay 
State and expressed surprise that "the Massachusetts Hector 
did not come to the relief of his beloved Troy," when Mr. Hoar 
coolly replied: "It is not necessary for Hector to take the field 
when the attack is led by Thersites." 

His writings are pleasing and interesting. His speaking was 
forcible, earnest, and instructive. While Mr. Hoak may not 
in considered an orator in the popular use of that word, vet 
many of his speeches, such as those delivered by him at the 
centennial of the opening of the great Northwest, at Marietta, 
Ohio; the presentation of the statue of Daniel Webster to the 
National Art Gallery; the two hundred and seventy-fifth anni- 
versary of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth; the bicen- 
tennial of Worcester: the Belknap impeachment trial; and many 
others, will give him, justly, rank as an orator. He was a true, 
patriotic American, a firm believer in our dual systems of 
Government — National and State. 

While in some things he was radical and partisan, he was in 
many things conservative, liberal, and generous, and exhibited 
many genial and attractive characteristics. His long, eventful, 
and illustrious career in the many positions of honor and trust 
held by him in State and nation is crowned with absolute per- 
sonal and official integrity, and entitles him to the rank of one 
of the greatest scholars, orators, and statesmen of his native- 
State and of our great country. 



Address of Mr. Piatt, of Connecticut 53 



Address of Mr. Platt, of Connecticut 

Mr. President: The Reverend Doctor Edwards, preaching 
the funeral sermon of Senator Hoar's maternal grandfather, 
Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, quoted, as voicing public 
sorrow, the words of David uttered upon the death of Abner, 
' ' Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen 
this day in Israel?" These words as fittingly describe the 
universal sentiment with which the news of Senator Hoar's 
death was received. 

The most eloquent and comprehensive review of the life, 
character, and services of GEORGE Frisbie Hoar by the 
Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Lodge] leaves but little to 
be said. His review is complete, his estimate true, his survey 
exhaustive. It has occurred to me, therefore, that I, who 
esteem it a privilege to add something by way of affectionate 
tribute to the memory of Senator HOAR, may speak briefly 
of his greatness. 

Greatness is a quality conceded to only few men; but I 
think no one, in this country at least, doubts that when Sen- 
ator Hoar died a great man passed beyond our ken to enter 
upon the life and activities of that future of which we know so 
little, but in which he had uudoubting faith. It softens our 
grief and mitigates our sense of loss to believe that in him the 
mortal has put on immortality. 

No question has been more widely discussed by thinkers, 
essayists, and philosophers than what it is that constitutes true 
greatness; none perhaps upon which there is wider divergence 
of opinion. We recognize human greatness. We may not 



54 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

define it: but I think that whatever else may be required three 
elements must exist without which no one can be said to have 
been a truly great man — namely, intellectual power, intense 
energy, and, above all, lofty moral purpose. Where can the 
man be found who possessed in higher degree or in whom were 
more completely blended these three essentials of greatness 
than our lost brother? 

His mental powers and activities were marvelous; his learn- 
ing the most profound, covering all fields — literature, history, 
law, religion, poetry — everything that mankind has thought 
or felt or wrought. The classics were as familiar to him as 
the primer of the schoolboy. The great poems in which the 
noblest souls have found their best expression were his daily 
food. The history of our own race and all races from pre- 
historic periods to the immediate present he fully knew. It 
was once said of an able .Senator that he was authority upon 
our country's history, except that of the last fifty years. 
Senator Hoar not only knew every fact and detail of our 
history, but he helped to make most of it during the past 
half century. Books were his constant companions. The 
highest thoughts of the wise and great in all times were his 
perpetual stimulus. 

Xn man was ever better equipped by scholarship and learn- 
ing for his life work. What he had once learned he could 
instantly recall and use with telling effect. His intellect was 
of the highest order — keen, analytical, powerful, grasping 
every topic, overlooking no detail, going straight to the core 
of things, disciplined, and untiring. Intellectually he meas- 
ured up to the best. 

When we think of the energy he brought to his work, his 
life seems to have been modeled on the scriptural injunction, 
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." 



Address of Mr. Piatt, of Connecticut 55 

Whatever task he undertook absorbed all the energies and 
powers of his being', and to its accomplishment he gave of 
his mind, his body, and his soul, until it was finished. No 
field of inquiry was difficult enough to turn him back, no 
question sufficiently abstruse to deter him, no problem so 
complicated as to be left unsolved. I doubt if he ever really 
knew an idle waking hour. How often as we watched him 
we saw his lips moving, framing the words of his unuttered 
thought. Those who knew him best could not help feeling 
that even in his moments of apparent relaxation and good 
fellowship there was going on within him that mysterious 
thing which we sometimes call "unconscious cerebration;" 
that his mind was ever at work solving the weightiest questions. 

Neither vast learning, powerful intellect, nor intense energy 
can make a man really great, unless his life is dominated by 
the highest moral purpose; and here, indeed, his nobility of 
soul was most apparent. His ideals were loft}-. His was a 
spiritual life. I use that word, not in a religious sense, 
although he was by nature religious, but in its wider meaning. 
He lived for that which was noble, pure, and uplifting, rather 
than for that which was material and self -helping. His one 
unvarying thought was to better the world by the enforcement 
of the right. 

We have heard sometimes of men who have tried to guide 
their lives according to some selected motto. I remember to 
have heard Senator Hoar quote in a speech in the Senate the 
text, "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are 
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of 
good report, if there be any virtue or if there be any praise, 
think on these things." I thought then that that was the 
motto upon which he endeavored to fashion his life. Idealist, 



56 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

indeed, he was, and yet all his great gifts and powers were 
exercised to make his highest ideals the actualities of human 
life. Others have been great as lawyers, philosophers, states- 
men, and as such he excelled, but he was greatest of all in his 
humanity. In the following of his high purposes lie was 
inflexible. He sought to know the very right of things, from 
the advocacy of which no one could turn or swerve him. 
When he had determined in his mind that a certain course of 
action was right, he was ready to surrender friendships, asso- 
ciations, and personal comfort in following it. His convictions 
were positive. Anything once thought out by him was 
settled, and his course inflexibly defined. He might stand 
alone in his belief, but he never doubted himself. 

Such, feebly outlined. I believe to have been the real ele- 
ments of his greatness, and I am sure it was these qualities 
which so endeared him to his associates here in the Senate, to 
tlie people of his native State, and to the country at large. 
Let no one suppose that in dwelling upon these traits of his 
character I would leave it to be inferred that his nature was 
stern or hard or forbidding. On the contrary, he was one of 
the sweetest and gentlest souls that ever lived. Tender and 
true as a woman, guileless as a child, sincere and loving in his 
friendships, attractive in all his social qualities, a man loving 
and beloved. 

We hear much of late of the greatly lauded, but rarely lived, 
simple life. I think Senator Huak was a perfect illustration of 
true simplicity in living. He lived out his inward life. He 
tried to be in public and on every occasion just what he really 
was at heart, ami this, as has been recently emphasized, is most 
compatible with true greatness. 

The occasion demands brevity, but I should sadly fail to do 
justice to the memory of Senator Hoak if I did not refer to his 



Address of Mr. Piatt, of Connecticut 57 

intense patriotism. His love of country was unbounded — it 
was a passion. Its history and its traditions were ingrained in 
his very being and became a part of him. No love of country 
is complete that does not include the love of those who have 
helped to fashion it, who have toiled and sacrificed for it. 
This is indeed the substratum of patriotism. This love is akin 
to ancestor worship. What the fathers thought, what they 
did, wdiat they said, how they fought, was to him an inspira- 
tion. That he might follow in their footsteps, preserve the 
institutions they founded, pass on to posterity the blessings 
they brought to our people, was his constant aim. Every act 
of his public career was influenced by his ancestral love. To 
carry on the work begun at Plymouth Rock, fought for at bun- 
ker Hill, crystallized in the Declaration of Independence, 
ordained in the Constitution of the United States, triumphant 
at Appomattox, was his life purpose — his ever present hope. 

Senator Hoar was thirty-five years in Congress, a length of 
service rareh' exceeded in our history — eight years representing 
his Congressional district in the House, twent\ -seven years 
representing his State in the Senate. He followed great Sena- 
tors from Massachusetts — Choate, Webster, Sumner, Wilson, 
not to speak of others justly entitled to be called great — but 
the interests of his .State, its glory and honor, in no wise suf- 
fered by the comparison of his career with that of the great 
Senators who had gone before. In his love for his State, in his 
zeal for its welfare, in his devotion to the institutions of our 
country, to the love of freedom, to the well-being of our people, 
he was the peer of any of his great predecessors. 

The word statesman has been belittled of late by those who 
have but a poor comprehension of its meaning. To really 
understand the meaning of the word we must emphasize both 
of the syllables which compose it. Senator Hoar was in the 



58 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

highest and truest sense a statesman — a servant of the State, 
most truly a man. To the State, in its broadest sense, he gave 
ungrudgingly all that was highest, noblest, and best in him as 
a man. We of the Senate, the people of his city and Common- 
wealth, loved his personality, his personal qualities, but his 
State and the nation loved him most because of his zeal for the 
public good, because he was in very truth and deed a statesman. 
( )ne single other word and I must conclude. I am profoundly 
impressed by the thought of the influence that such a man as 
Senator Hoar exercises on the future. I am one of those who 
believe that no thought conceived by the brain, no word spoken 
by the lips, no act performed by the will has ever been lost or 
ceases to exert its influence upon mankind. No thought, word, 
or act of the highest, the lowest, the richest, the poorest, the 
best, or the worst of men and women who have lived on earth 
since the days when mankind became socially organized has 
ever been wholly effaced. The world is to-day what these 
thoughts, words, and deeds of all who have gone before us have 
made it. and the world of the future will, in this respect, be like 
the world of the present. Men die, but humanity lives on. 
We say that Senator Hoar is dead, but what he has done here 
is passed on to be reflected in the life of mankind so long as the 
earth and human life shall endure. Happy is the memory of 
the man who has thus lived and worked and impressed himself 
not only upon the present but the future. 



Address <>/ Mr, Teller, of Colorado 59 



Address of Mr. Teller, of Colorado 

Mr. President: My first acquaintance with the late Senator 
Hoar began during the last session of the Forty-fourth Con- 
gress. He was a member of the Electoral Commission that 
decided the Presidential contest between Hayes and Tilden. 
On the 4th of March, 1N77, he became a member of this bod} 
He had been a Member of the House of Representatives during 
the Forty-first, Forty-second, Forty-third, and Forty-fourth 
Congresses. His service in the House of Representatives had 
been conspicuous, and he was recognized as a worthy repre- 
sentative of the great State of Massachusetts in that body. 
Having been a member of the Electoral Commission in service 
here, he naturally came in for his share of the criticism of 
those who were displeased with the finding of the Commission. 
There was much bitterness and ill feeling OH tile part of those 
who had supported Tilden. The situation in several of the 
.Southern States was troublesome, if not alarming; we were too 
near the close of the great civil war to allow that conservative 
action that could alone bring about peace between the former 
contending parties. Thus it will be seen Senator Hoar's 
entrance in this body was at a very important period of our his- 
torv. Senator Hoar, as a member of the House of Represent- 
atives, had been an active and aggressive force, exerting much 
influence over his political associates, but I believe all who 
knew him will agree that the Senate was the proper place for 
the exercise of his great abilities. In this body he found 
opportunities for the display of his taleuts that he could not 
find in the House of Representatives. He met in this body the 



60 Lift and Character <>/ George /•'. Hoar 

ablest of his political opponents — men smarting under the de- 
feal "l [876, who could not readily forgive him for the part he 
had taken in the final settlement of that contest. 

The President called an extra session of Congress to meet in 
October. The membership of that Congress is somewhat re- 
markable. Among the Republicans were James G. Blaine,' 
George F. Edmunds, Justin S. Morrill, Henry L,. Dawes, Ros- 
coe Conkling, Timothy O. Howe, Senator Hoar, John J. 
Ingalls, Hannibal Hamlin. William Windom, Samuel J. R. 
McMillan, of Minnesota; Henry 15. Anthony; Ambrose E. 
Burnside, of Rhode Island; S. J. Kirkwood, of Iowa; Stanley 
Matthews, of Ohio; Aaron A. Sargent ami Newton Booth, of 
California; ( >. P. Morton; John P. Jones; the senior Senator 
from Iowa. Mr. Allison, and the senior Senator from Oregon, 
Mr. Mitchell. 

Among the Democrats were Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio; 
Thomas F. Bayard and Eli Saulsbury, of Delaware; Francis 
Kernau. of New York; James B. Beck, of Kentucky; L. Q. C. 
Lamar, of Mississippi; John T. Morgan, of Alabama: Benja- 
min Hill, of Georgia; I. G. Harris, of Tennessee; Joseph E. 
McDonald, of Indiana; Henry G. Davis, of West Virginia; the 
senior Senator from Missouri, Mr. Cockrell; T. F. Randolph, 
of Xew Jersey; W. Pinkney Whyte, of Maryland, and David 
Davis, of Illinois, just from the Supreme Court of the United 
States, who. while calling himself an independent, was, in 
fact, a Democrat. 

The special session commencing on October 15, 1877, was 
an unusually exciting one, and the bitterness growing out of 
the decision of the Electoral Commission rather increased 
than decreased during the session. The .Senator's command- 
in- position in the House of Representatives enabled him to 
take an active part in the business before the Senate, and his 



Address of Mr. Teller, of Colorado 6] 

position on the Electoral Commission made him the special 

target of attack from his political opponents. Senator Hoak 
did not attempt to explain his action on the Commission, but 
met all attacks with spirit and in a way to command the 
respect of his opponents. 

We know that the Senate does not readily concede to new- 
comers any more than they show themselves capable of win- 
ning. It did not take long for Senator Hoar to win his way 
to the front rank of the able men in the Senate, and we all 
know that lie maintained that rank to the da} - of his last 
services in this body. While he was positive in his ideas and 
pressed the measures that he favored with intelligence and zeal, 
he was ever tolerant toward those who he believed differed 
with him from conviction. 

I recall that while he was the chairman of the Committee on 
Privileges and Elections the House of Representatives sent to 
us a bill to regulate Federal elections, which was referred to 
that committee. I was at the time a member of that com- 
mittee, and when we came to consider the measure I could not 
agree with my Republican colleagues. While I could see the 
evils complained of, I could not rid myself of the idea that it 
was a dangerous bill, and very likely to make matters worse 
rather than better. Senator Hoar appealed to me to allow a 
favorable report to be made. I agreed that he might report 
the bill in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the 
Republican members, but stated that I could not support the 
bill. The bill, after considerable delay, came before the Senate 
as a special order. It was extensively debated on both sides of 
the Chamber, but was finally laid aside and lost its place by the 
taking up of another bill. This change was accomplished by 
the vote of all the Democrats and six Republicans, the vote 
being 35 to 34. I do not recall the defeat of any measure that 



62 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

created more feeling than the displacement of that bill. The 
recalcitrant Republicans were severely blamed, and many hard 
things said of those who failed to support the bill. 

Soon after the displacement of that bill a conference of 
Republican Senators was called at the home of a Republican 
Senator to consider whether the bill should be abandoned or 
an effort made to pass it. I have attended many party con- 
ferences, but in no one, either before or since that confer- 
ence, have I ever seen so much bitterness on the part of the 
deleated element. Speeches were made of an angry character, 
and the recalcitrant Republicans were unmercifully chastised. 
The offending Senators were quick to respond in the spirit 
of their accusers. Senatoi Huak had taken but little part 
in the discussion; but when apparently the discussion was 
about to close he took the floor. We all knew how dear 
the bill was to him and how arduously he had labored to 
secure its passage. He told us how important he thought 
the bill; he spoke of the abuse it was intended to prevent, 
and the obligations on Congress to secure by law some way 
to destroy existing abuses. He frankly admitted that he had 
feared the bill if it became a law might be abused and harm 
done under the pretense of securing a fair election; he 
declared he had weighed this matter well and was alive to 
that danger, but he felt that it was his duty to support the 
bill. He was calm and dispassionate — I never saw him more 
so — but we could all see that he was greatly distressed by the 
failure of the measure. He then turned his attention to the 
Republican Senators who had opposed the bill. He declared 
that every Senator must act from his own sense of justice, 
and said there was no reason for harsh words or complaint, 
adding that he did not want anyone to violate his ideas of 



. Iddress of Mr. Teller, of Colorado 63 

justice. If Senators believed the bill to be bad it was their 
duty to defeat it by all fair means. 

His speech acted like a charm on the discordant elements 
of the meeting. The conference dissolved without taking a 
vote, and that was the death of the so-called "force bill." 

If anything could have induced me to vote for the bill, it 
was the manner the offending Senators were treated by 
Senator Hoar. I had known for years that he was great; 
then I knew he was good. The Senator conceded to his 
opponents all that he demanded for himself, and that was 
freedom of thought and the right to follow his conscience, 
even against the dictates of a caucus. Mr. President, one 
who can face defeat, see his plans frustrated, when he feels 
sure they are right, and accept such defeat without bitterness 
or hate, may well be called great. 

Senator Hoar was a partisan; he could not be otherwise, for 
he was a man of positive convictions. He formed his opinion 
after careful study and deliberate thought, but his partisanship 
did not lead him to accept as right whatever had the support of 
his party. He considered and determined for himself, and if 
his judgment did not approve of a measure he did not hesitate 
to oppose it, even when prepared and supported by his party. 
He was opposed to the Spanish treaty made at the close of the 
Spanish war. He did not hesitate to part with his political 
friends and oppose ratification, and later, when the policy of 
his party as to the control and management of the newly 
acquired islands appeared to him to be wrong, he criticised it 
in strong terms. While his attitude on that question brought 
on him severe criticism of his party supporters, he did not 
waver in his opposition, and his attitude on that question vin- 
dicated his life record as the opponent of whatever he believed 



64 Life itini Character of George F. Hoar 

to be wrong. Those who believed with him, and those who did 
not, realized that his attitude was such as might be expected of 
him, and could but honor him for it. 

He was a scholar, a constitutional lawyer, a patriot, and a 
statesman. He was a lover of freedom, not for himself alone 
or his race alone, but for all mankind. He hated wrong and 
loved justice, and to the extent of his capacities helped the 
unfortunate without distinction of race. 

Massachusetts has sent here some of the most notable mem- 
bers of this body. Some may have attained a greater fame 
than he, but I am sure none were superior to him in all those 
noble qualities that make a great Senator. Massachusetts will 
suffer through his death, but not alone, for all lovers of a clean, 
pure life throughout the length of our land will mourn the 
death of this ideal American Senator. 



Address of Mr. Cullom, of Illinois 65 



Address of Mr. Cullom, of Illinois 

Mr. President: This day has been set apart that we may 
pay tribute to the memory of one of the most distinguished 
men who ever occupied a seat in the Senate of the United 
States — George Frisbie Hoar, of Massachusetts. 

Everywhere in this great nation the people are familiar with 
the name of George F. Hoar. Beloved by many, respected 
by all, Senator Hoar, at the time of his death, was one of the 
marked figures in American public life. 

Full of years and of honors he passed away, and his great 
public career is well calculated to challenge the admiration and 
respect of his countrymen. 

There is a lesson to be learned from the life of a great man, 
and it is interesting to know the lesson which Senator Hoar 
learned from his own life. 

Looking back, seeing in retrospect his long life, extending 
almost fourscore years, in the twilight of his career, he repeats 
these words: 

The lesson which I have learned in life, which is impressed on me daily 
and more deeply as I grow old, is the lesson of good will and good hope. 
I believe that to-day is better than yesterday, and that to-morrow will be 
better than to-day. I believe that, in spite of so many errors and wr< mgs 
and even crimes, my countrymen of all classes desire what is good and not 
what is evil, 

George F. Hoar was a religious man; two of the essentials 
of his religion were "good will, good hope," based on that 
passage in scripture which, as he says, sums up the whole 
destin}' of man, "and now abideth faith, hope, and charity — 
these three." 

S. Doc. 201, 58-3 5 



66 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

Thirty-six years ago, when we were both young men, I 
served with Senator Hoar in the House of Representatives of 
the Congress. For more than twenty-one years I had the honor 
of occupying a seat near him in the Senate of the United States. 
For nearly a quarter of a century I knew him somewhat 
intimately. 

He was a liberal, broad-minded man. He had few, if any, 
of the common prejudices so often associated with party, reli- 
gion, country, or sectionalism. 

A true Republican from the birth of that party, of which he 

was an honored member from the beginning of the party until 

his death, he used the following language: 

I believe our countrymen of the other party, in spite of what we deem 
their errors, would take the Republic and bear on the flag to liberty and 
glory. 

I h scending from a long line of Protestant ancestors, living in 

New England, the home of the Puritan, he said; 

I believe if every l'rotestant were stricken down by a lightning stroke, 
that our brethren of the Catholic faith would still carry on the Republic 
in the spirit of true and liberal freedom. 

An American, whose grandfather and two great-grandfathers 
fought in the Revolution, it would not be surprising if he dis- 
trusted men of foreign birth who have come to this country, 
but he did not. His speeches and writings give absolute evi- 
dence of his faith in the patriotism and love of our country in 
the hearts of foreigners who come to America and become citi- 
zens of the United States. 

He was a Northerner by birth and by education, in the full 
vigor of manhood during the terrible struggle between the 
North and South, intensely loyal to the North, but he still had 
faith in the South, and believed that " if every man in the North 
were to tlie the South would take up the country and bear it on 
to the achievement of its loftv destiny." 



Address of Mr. Cullom, of Illi)ioix 67 

.Senator Hoar was an opponent of stringent immigration 

laws, and particularly was he opposed to our Chinese-exclusion 
policy. He believed that this country was large enough and 
great enough to afford a haven of refuge for the oppressed 
people of all the world. 

It was these characteristics which so endeared Senator Hoar 
to the great majority of the people of this nation. 

While Senator Hoar was a liberal man, respecting the views 
of other men and of his party, yet he was too strong intellec- 
tually, too true to his own convictions, to be a follower of any 
man or class of men. When he had fully made up his mind on 
any question, no power could move him. The pressure of party 
and of Administration were useless. He differed with his party 
on many important questions, but on that account he did not 
feel it to be his duty to abandon the party with which he had 
been so long associated. Rather did he remain in the party 
and endeavor to bring it to his views, and sometimes he suc- 
ceeded in this. 

He opposed with all his power of eloquence and argument 
the retention of the Philippine Islands and the expansion 
policy of his party. But he retained an affectionate regard 
for the late President McKinley, who fully reciprocated this 
feeling. 

All the power of party could not induce Senator Hoar to 
support a policy or cast a vote that his conscience did not 
fully approve. 

While Senator Hoar was liberal and kindly toward other 
men, yet, like all strong-minded men, he had intense "likes" 
and intense "dislikes" for particular individuals. He never 
lost his affection for President McKinley, with whom he dif- 
fered on many questions, or his dislike of the late General 
Butler. 



68 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

Senator Hoak was not a politician in the usual sense of that 
term. He knew little of practical politics and, apparently, 
cared less. In his case office sought the man. I have been 
told that he never sought or asked for public office. 

He was an active ami prominent Member of the House of 
Representatives, recognized for his legal ability and rendering 
important service on committees and on the floor. 

In the Senate he has been recognized as an able lawyer and 
statesman, interested in all important legislation and taking a 
prominent part in the discussion and disposition of public 
questions. His committee service was confined principally to 
the two law committees of the .Senate — the Judiciary and 
Privileges and Elections. Senator Hoar was a thorough law- 
yer, loving his profession, which, it might be said, he inherited, 
his father being a well-known lawyer in Massachusetts, a State 
noted For its great lawyers and jurists. His brother was the 
distinguished Attorney-General in the Cabinet of President 
('.rant. 

There were few more cultivated men in public life than 
Senator Hoak. He was not a self-made man in the sense 
that Lincoln was. He had advantages which Lincoln and 
some of the great men of this country did not have. He was 
a member of an old and well-known New England family. 
He received a classical education in the best college in the 
United States. His early life was spent among highly culti- 
vated people. He knew our greatest poets and men of letters — 
Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Thoreau, Lowell, and Haw- 
thorne. 

He was a student all his life, daily adding to his great 
store of learning. He never seemed to forget his early clas- 
sical training, and was ever ready in debate and in his writ- 
ings with an apt Latin or Greek quotation to illustrate a 
point. 



Address oj Mr. Cullom, of Illinois 69 

Senator Hoar was an able debater — an effective and forceful 
speaker — having great command of language. 

Senator Hoar was a splendid writer. Had his time been 
devoted to literature rather than to law and public office, lie 
would have been one of the foremost men of letters in this 
country. His autobiography is a well- written and interesting 
history of the United States for the past seventy years, 
written by one who had a prominent part in public affairs 
since [869. From a literary standpoint parts of that auto- 
biography have hardly been surpassed. His description of 
Edward Everett, the orator, is particularly fine. 

He was very often, in the press of the United States and 
among the people, described as the "Grand Old Man of 
America." And in many respects Senator Hoar did resem- 
ble that great British statesman, the "Grand Old Man of 
England," William Ewart Gladstone, whose long parliamcn- 
tarv career extended for more than sixty years. Mr. Hoar's 
public career was not so long as that of Mr. Gladstone, but 
it was among the longest of our American statesmen. 

Like Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Hoar had all the advantages of 
a splendid education, and was the man of letters whose nat- 
ural taste would have inclined him to literature rather than 
politics. Like Mr. Gladstone, he was not bound by the 
dictates of party, and did not hesitate to do what was deemed 
to be right in public affairs, regardless of what party policies 
dictated. Like Mr. Gladstone, he stood for economy and 
honesty in public office. In religion Mr. Hoar was not as 
orthodox as Mr. Gladstone, but he had as firm and true a 
belief in an Overruling Providence, in a hereafter. Like Mr. 
Gladstone, he was a Christian statesman, a lover of peace, 
the friend of the oppressed in all lauds. 

George F. Hoar was more nearly the Gladstone of 
America than any of our statesmen of recent times. 



•jo Life and Character <•/ George F. Hoar 

William Ewart Gladstone, of Great Britain, and George 
Frisbie Hoar, of the United States, lived during the same 
period, and died respected and mourned by their countrymen. 

Massachusetts has reason to be proud of her great men. No 
State in the Union has given to the country a larger number 
of great statesmen and great jurists or so many famed men of 
letters. 

Her many famous men of Continental days were followed 
by such men as Webster, Choate, Sumner, Everett, dishing, 
and Wilson. These are men of whom any nation might well 
be proud. 

George F. Hoar was of the type of our early American 
statesmen, of the fathers, the signers of the Constitution, and 
was the worthy successor in the Senate of the United States of 
Adams, Webster, Choate, and Sumner. 

Mr. President, while we shall not see again in this Senate 
his kindly and genial face, yet his example and burning words 
uttered here and elsewhere on important questions will con- 
tinue to be a living force to guide us in the discharge of our 
great duties in the interests of the country. 

Mr. President, in concluding I may be permitted to quote 
the closing paragraph of the eulogy by William H. Seward in 
memory of Henry Clay. 

His remarks are peculiarly applicable on this occasion. He 
said: 

His example remains for our instruction. His genius has passed to the 
realms of life, Imt his virtue-- still live here for our emulation. With 
them there will remain also the protection and favor of the Most High, if 
by the practice of justice ami maintenance of freedom we shall deserve 
them. Let, then, the bier pass on. We will follow with sorrow, but not 
without hope, the reverent form that it bears to its final resting place; and 
then, when the grave opens at our feet to receive so estimable a treasure, 
\\i will invoke the ('.oil of our fathers to send us new guides like him that 
is now withdrawn and give us wisdom to obey their instructions. 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia Ji 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 

Mr. President : A great man has passed. He filled the 
place once occupied by Webster, by Choate, by Winthrop. by 
Sumner ; and he stood up in it in full stature. Worthy suc- 
cessors will fill that place, but when the Dictator of Events 
removed from it forever George Frisbie Hoar, the senior 
Senator from Massachusetts, it seemed rather like the passing 
of an era than the departure of a man. 

No constituent vote recalled him from his worthy and accept- 
able services. Xo constitutional limit exhausted his term. Xo 
design of man and no accident of chance snapped the thread 
of his existence. In the fullness of years Time wrote "the 
end ' ' to the book of his deeds and his thoughts. 

He was well-nigh So years of age. He had heard the 
whispers of the low waves that played on the beach of the 
mighty ocean that has not known a returning sail. 

A little over a year before his death he spoke of the death of 
a lifetime friend who had gone before him : ' ' The friend of im- 
mature manhood, the friend of my mature age, almost the last 
of them, has gone to his honored grave. This, ' ' said he ' ' is 
what makes dying to an old man. It is not that you grow 
blind or deaf or halt or lame ; it is not that you lay down this 
frail tenement in which we walk. When the rich music of the 
voices we love is silent, it is well that the ear grows deaf. 
When the faces that were our delight have disappeared, it is 
well that the eyes grow blind. It is this losing that is true 
dying." 



~2 Life <iiid Character of George F. Hoar 

I shall not repeat the details of his long career, which have 
been better told by others here, but say a few things which 
struck me concerning him. The people of my State, also 
their representatives here, had a great respect and liking for 
him, no matter how much they had differed from him. It was 
because they saw in him the man of principle and honor, the 
patriot who put his country first in his affections, and because 
they also recognized his possession of a benevolent and friendly 
heart that played like sunshine over the austerities of principle 
and that lent even to them its charms. 

I have called Senator Hoar a great man. He is entitled 
tu rank in that category. It is only the honest fact that I 
recite. Xo man is great save by comparison and contrast 
with his fellows. If all the intellects of all the great thinkers 
of the world for all time were put together, they would form 
but an infinitesimal atom of the infinite wisdom that rules 
the universe. 

Senator Hoar was a tall and stately, yea, an illustrious, 
figure among the foremost men of his day and generation, 
and in many aspects none were his superiors. He was great 
in his devotion and service to the paramount ideals of his 
manhood. He was great in his integrity to the principles 
which he professed. He loved language, the greatest of all 
instrumentalities for the communication of thought. He loved 
letters, and the refinements of thought which they alone can 
give. He was saturated with the most profound reflections 
and utterances of the greatest speakers, poets, and thinkers. 
He painted many a picture which enchained the gaze of the 
lover of the true, the beautiful, and the good. His tongue 
spoke many a sentence which aroused the spirit of just reflec- 
tion and of action and fixed it in firm resolve and elevated 
the mind to a higher plane of thinking. He was a great 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 73 

lawyer; he dealt mostly with the great underlying principles 
which run their root into natural law; he loved its logic and 
its philosophies, and the greater the occasion that invoked the 
play of his faculties the greater would he have appeared in 
their exercise. 

Whether in current debate or in a more stately and formal 
occasion, his ability as an orator was always conspicuous. His 
eloquence was attuned to a high key and found expression 
in clear and sonorous notes. He left no doubt upon the minds 
of his hearers as to the earnestness of his convictions, as to 
the power of his logic, or as to the charm of his speech. He 
was, in a long career, the colleague of many of the brightest 
intellects and most powerful disputants that ever shone in 
public discussions, and he suffered by comparison with none of 
them. He drew from poetry and from art, as well as from 
history, the fine raiments of his discourses. Some of them, 
like the armor of great knights who have gone, will be pre- 
served while memory keeps records of battles that will be 
fought no more. But many of them are more than the obso- 
lete armor of past conflicts and of departed men; they are 
wellsprings of wisdom and of refreshment, to which passing 
generations will continually repair for that feast of reason and 
that flow of soul which are to be found in communion with 
great minds and great hearts. 

Senator Hoar brought with him to the Senate a keen sense 
of the exalted station in our Government that a Senator occu- 
pies. That sense was quick in his breast during all of his 
long service, and he preserved it without ever doing anything 
to lower the dignity of his office. It was once known that he 
had been offered the appointment by the President as Ambas- 
sador to Great Britain, and in a friendly way I expressed to 
him courteous personal congratulation. His reply was that a 



74 Life and Charac/tr of George F. Hoar 

Senator from the old historic State of Massachusetts, honoring 
my own State of Virginia by associating it in the same con- 
nection, could not be promoted by any other office, great as he 
knew was the one tendered to him, and as much as he appre- 
ciated the honor of having his name so mentioned. The senti- 
ment was worthy of him and of the great State which he 
loved and served so well. He felt and often expressed his 
conviction that no Senator should receive in his own person 
any appointment, employment, or emolument from Executive 
authority while still exercising the Senatorial office. He con- 
sidered it essential to the dignity and independence of the 
Senate that a Senator be a Senator only. He believed that a 
Senator should owe no personal obligation to any sources of 
j lower saving alone those which gave him the title and place 
of Senator and that fixed his duties. 

As a member of a great co-ordinate branch of the Congress, 
as a judge in a great court that has had and may at any time 
have the President or other high officer at its bar to answer 
in judgment, and as an executive agent to share with the 
President himself the power of appointment, he did not believe 
it compatible with, those relations to become the recipient of 
personal favor from any Executive authority. 

This was, in my humble opinion, a just and true conception 
of the Senatorial office which he filled so well; and I rejoiced 
to hear him express a view which I deemed so worthy. Let 
me remark, however, upon the gentleness as well as upon the 
emphasis and clearness of his opinion. He indulged in no 
animadversion upon men who had differed with him about 
that matter and had set a different example. In his autobi- 
ography there are some wise reflections kindred to such as 
ruled him in opinion as to others on this matter, and his mind 
upon differences between men of equal honor and conscience. 



Address of Mr. Da/tic/, of I 'irginia 75 

It is a remarkable truth — 

He says — 

that impresses itself upon me more and more the longer I live, that 
men who are perfectly sincere and patriotic may differ from each 
other on what seems the greatest principles of legislation, and yet both 
sides be conscientious and patriotic. There is hardly a political question 
among the great questions that have interested the American people 
for the last few centuries upon which we did nut differ from each other. 
The difference is not only as to the interpretation of the Constitution 
and the law for the government of the people, but seems to go down 
to the very roots of the moral law. 

That this is a fact upon which he rested no man can doubt, 
and it is a fact upon which liberalism may build its temple 
founded on a rock. That "no pent-up Utica " bound his 
powers of discrimination and that no sectional line was per- 
mitted to obscure his sense of justice of the worthy and the 
noble was often exhibited in generous words and actions. 
Notably did he display his appreciation of great virtue in what 
he says in his book of Gen. Edward C. Walthall, of Missis- 
sippi, whom he describes most justly as " a perfect type of the 
gentleman in character and speech, and as courteous and eager 
to be of service to his friends or his country," and to him he 
pays a tribute which is the badge of true and lasting glory 
both to him who gave and to him who received. " If," says 
he, " I were to select the one man of all others with whom I 
have served in the Senate who seems to me the most perfect 
example of the quality and character of the American Senator, 
I think it would be Edward C. Walthall, of Mississippi." 

Senator Hoar in his service here was a Senator only. He 
looked the Senator; he spoke the .Senator. His eye was single 
and it was full of light. Xo man ever said or thought of him 
that he was the servant of personal ambitions or of private ends. 
There are many things in heaven and in earth that can not be 
seen by our eyes, or heard by our ears, or touched by our hands. 



-]b Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

or which are within the pale of our senses: more indeed " than 
arc dreamed of in our philosophies." Hence many a noble 
aim may miss its mark, however clear be the eye that discerns, 
however firm be the will that directs, however true be the hand 
that obeys. It is only possible to the human to be right in 
mind and conscience and to be sincere in heart. So felt the 
prophet when he said: " Keep thy heart with all diligence; for 
out of it are the issues of life." So did Senator Hoar keep his 
heart. He aimed his arrow at wrong wherever he thought he 
found it. He lifted his shield over the right wherever he 
thought the right needed reenforcement. It is only in such 
performance of duty that true glory may be found. 

"The most important thing about a man is his religion," 
said Thomas Carlyle, for. it is true that out of the creed grows 
the deed. Mr. Hoar had a religion. It was a noble one. If 
I sought to sum it up I would say it was "God and humanity; 
over all and in all, God." He was Unitarian in his profession, 
and at the National Unitarian Conference in this city in 
October, 1S99, he said: "Every Unitarian man or woman, 
every lover of God or His Son, everyone who in loving his 
fellow-men loves God and His Sou, even without knowing it, is 
welcome to this company." * * * "No Five Points, no 
Athanasian creed, no Thirty-nine Articles could separate the 
men and women of our way of thinking from humanity or from 
Divinity." "We are sometimes told that we can 

not define Uuitarianism. For myself I thank God it is not to 
be defined. To define is to bound, to inclose, to limit. The 
great things of the universe are not to be defined. Von can 
not define human soul. You can not define the intellect. You 
can not define immortality or eternity. You can not define 
God." 



Address of Mr. Daniel, of Virginia 77 

He preached hope, faith, and charity, and finally "that 
whatever clouds may darken the horizon the world is growing 
better; that to-day is better than yesterday, and to-morrow will 
be better than to-day." 

The great career of Isham G. Harris was portrayed by 
Senator Hoar in an address, which, leaving out a few phrases 
which identify the speaker, might have been spoken by the 
neighbor and life-long associate of that distinguished Tennes- 
seau and true American; for it is replete with every note of 
appreciation of that singularly able, direct, frank, courageous, 
and manly man. Senator Harris's services here and elsewhere 
are clothed with reflections such as are in our hearts to-day 
with respect to his eulogist, but which no one could express mi 
well as did Senator Hoar. 

I [is influence — 

Said Mr. Hoar — 

will be felt here for a long time; his striking figure will still be moving 
about the Senate Chamber, still deliberating and still debating. Mr. 
President, it is delightful to think that between men who took part in the 
great conflict of the civil war, at least a greater part of them, the bitter 
feelings are all gone. Throughout the whole land the word "country- 
men" has at last become a title of endearment. The memory of the 
soldiers of that great conflict is preserved as gently by both sides. Massa 
chusetts joins with Tennessee in putting a wreath on the tomb of her great 
soldier, her great governor, her great Senator. He was faithful to truth 
as he saw it, to duty as he understood it, to constitutional liberty as he 
conceived it. 

Not only Virginia, the elder sister of Massachusetts, not 
only the old thirteen States that founded our fabric of Gov- 
ernment, but all of the forty-five American Commonwealths 
that to-day constitute the Republic, say this of him, who so 
nobly applied it to another: "He was faithful to truth as he- 
saw it, to duty as he understood it, to constitutional liberty 
as he conceived it." He, like Harris, is also dead. Together 



jS Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

all the States bow their heads beside his tomb. Together 
they bind their wreaths of honor and affection and lay them 
encircled there. 

Man sees all things die around him. The bud .and the 
blossom die. The leaf and the tree die. The birds of the 
air and the fishes of the sea, the creatures of the forest and 
the field and the desert; alike, they die. Man in this respect 
is like them, and we see and feel and know within ourselves, 
as did our dying brother, that of a truth we die daily. The 
days die and the nights die. The weeks and the months 
and the years and the centuries and the aeons die. Time 
itself, even as we call its name and with our every breath, 
dies away from us. An eternity without beginning lies behind 
us — dead. 

But all things, too, are quickening, pulsing, and springing 
into life around us — out of darkness the light, out of death 
life again; and creation and re-creation forever reappear 
through fire and flood, through ice and air, through land and 
sea, in the skies above the earth and in the waters under the 
earth, uprising and widespreading their redundant and cease- 
less continuances and reassertions of life, life, life. See we 
not, therefore, that all things at all times testify to life, to 
life instant, to life constant, to life impregnable and irre- 
sistible, to life all-conquering; it is scarcely a step to say, to 
life everlasting. This is what Senator Hoar believed. If 
these things apply to the material things around us, from 
which creation is ever evoking newer and higher forms of 
life, how much more do they seem applicable to the finer and 
subtler things of spirit; and is it not in the life and character 
and thought and aspiration and loving kindness of such men 
as was George Frisbik Hoar in that we find indeed the 
strongest intimations in nature of immortality? 



Address of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire 79 



Address of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire 

Mr. President: Longfellow's poetic allusion to Bayard 
Taylor may appropriately be applied to the late Senator Hoar: 

Dead he lay among his hooks, 
The peace of God was in his looks. 
As the statues in the gloom 
Watch o'er Maximilian's tomb, 
So those volumes from their shelves 
Watched him, silent as themselves. 

Genial, lovable, witty, scholarly, and eloquent, loving his 
books and reveling in intellectual research, George Frisbie 
Hoar was the highest type of the scholar in politics. A 
profound student, a great jurist, and omnivorous reader, his 
wonderful mind seemed to retain accurate knowdedge on 
almost every conceivable subject, so much so that his asso- 
ciates in the Senate rarely questioned the authenticity of his 
utterances. How he illumined every discussion that dealt 
with historical subjects, and how wonderful and instructive 
were his speeches on the great questions of the day. It 
seemed to those of us who were privileged to listen to his 
words of wisdom and admonition that he must always remain 
in this body, the great central figure of the arena in which 
his talents were so conspicuously displayed. But he was 
mortal, and in the fullness of his years the summons came, 
and his inspiring presence is with us no more. Loving him 
as we did, it is fitting that words of eulogy, however inade- 
quate they may be, should be spoken by his associates, who 
knew him as one of the greatest Senators that the Republic 
has produced. 



8o Lije and Character of George F. Hoar 

( )f what we shall say here of the late Senator from Massa- 
chusetts little may survive the day of its utterance. Our 
tributes to his worth may soon be forgotten. Our estimates of 
his character may add nothing to his fame. Our eulogies may 
not be necessary to keep in the memory of his countrymen 
his service to the nation. Yet the opinion of his associates 
in the field of his public usefulness is but the spontaneous 
testimony of those who have felt the inspiration and uplifting 
of his presence. Perhaps the most we can hope is that the 
judgment of his contemporaries may aid the future historian, 
free from the prejudice and feeling of the hour in which he 
writes, to assign to Senator Hoar his place among those who 
have had a prominent part in the making of the Republic. 

When I entered the Senate in 1891 Senator Hoar had been 
a member far fourteen years, that being a much longer service 
than is usual in this body. He had already attained a leader- 
ship in the councils of the nation which gave to his views the 
earnest consideration of the country. As a product of New 
England, my own State had pride in him second only to that 
of Massachusetts. He stood the conspicuous representative of 
New England thought and New England independence of 
action. He had become a fixture in this body. If there was 
thought anywhere entertained of his ceasing to be a Senator 
from Massachusetts it never found public expression. Differ, 
as he frequently did, from the people of the East on public 
questions, there was that weight given to his opinions and that 
confidence felt in his integrity that any New England State 
would have returned him term after term, as did the State of 
Massachusetts. He held a place in the affections of the people 
of New England second to that of none other in our history. 
Some of his predecessors in this body have been rebuked 
or retired for failing to represent the current opinions of a 



Address of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire 81 

majority of their constituents, hut Senator Hoar's hold 
upon the public was such that his commission read: " For life, 
to act as your conscience dictates." 

Nor was the deference paid to the views of Senator Hoar 
by the people of New England greater than that of his associ- 
ates in this body. Whatever the subject under discussion it 
had not been exhausted, or the last fitting word spoken, if 
.Senator Hoar was yet to address the Senate. Out of his 
learning and research would come new facts and new thoughts 
for consideration. Every debate in which he had a part was 
enriched by his contribution. His knowledge of history and 
of precedent was profound and accurate, and he gave of his 
abundant store of information to all matters of legislation. 
With him no subject was too trivial for thoughtful discussion. 
He was ever the careful, painstaking, and conscientious public 
servant. Dissenting often from his opinions, there was always 
that great respect for his views which is paid only to those who 
command it from the superiority of their knowledge and the 
integrity of their purpose. 

Senator Hoar's service in both branches of Congress covered 
almost a third of the period of the Government since the adop- 
tion of the Federal Constitution. Others have been here as 
long at different times in our history, but to few has it been 
given to witness and be a part of so great development and so 
many changes. At the entrance of his career the fifteenth and 
last amendment of the Constitution was proposed in Congress, 
and he therefore participated in making our organic law what 
it is to-day. Versed in all the facts pertaining to the construc- 
tion and evolution of that document, he could rightly consider 
himself one of its expounders, and most jealous was he of any 
departure from its provisions. In all of the important legisla- 
tion since 1869 he had a part in molding it to the needs of the 
S. Doc. 201, 58-3 6 



82 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

country. The impress of his thought is stamped upon the 
statutes of the nation for a generation. His life may be read 
in our laws, our policies, and our growth. If no one great 
measure owes to him its authorship it is because he distributed 
the genius necessary to such a creation over a multitude of 
enactments. 

Mr. President, there is little contemporary appreciation of the 
faithful public servant, his personal sacrifice, and his fidelity to 
the trust committed to his care. The public sees but the gla- 
mour of power, and notices but the acts that go contrary to its 
opinion. Senator Hoar's life was the highest type of civic 
patriotism, for it was dedicated in the loftiest degree to the 
public service Honor, fame, reward awaited him in his pro- 
fession or in the field of literature. Yielding to his inclination 
and taste, he had ahead of him the comforts of private life, its 
enjoyments, its freedom from public vexations, its satisfying 
returns. This enticing picture of the future he put aside when 
the call came to him to take up the public burden, and he bore 
his part without complaint. Truly there is a heroism of peace 
as well as of war, and Senator Hoar was the civic hero of his 
generation. 

Could anything be more beautiful and inspiring than his life? 
In the world at large he had also his part in the public weal. 
Did the cause of philanthropy need an advocate, he was there. 
Did the oppressed of other nations call for a champion, his voice 
was raised in their behalf. Was it a moral lesson to teach, he 
pointed it with a force at once striking and effective. Did the 
shadow of. superstition darken the land, his gospel of faith, 
hope, and cheer lifted the veil. To his neighbors he was the 
beloved citizen. To his countrymen he was the statesman 
without reproach. To the youth of the nation he was the 
example of true manhood. To us here he was a helper and 



Address of Mr. Gallinger, of New Hampshire 83 

friend. To the future we may leave his fame, content that he 
who writes impartially of that period of the Republic from the 
close of the war between the States to the incoming twentieth 
century will place Senator Hoar high among those who loved 
their country, and gave of the best within them for her better- 
ment. Peace to his ashes. 



•S i Life and Character of George F. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Bacon, of Georgia 

Mr. President: It is too frequently true that the language 
of eulogy far surpasses the true merit of the object of its praise. 
The ancient maxim of the Latins, " Speak no evil of the dead," 
found its inspiration in the same charity which impels the 
ascription of virtues to one who has gone from the living, far 
exceeding those which are recognized and accorded to him 
when in life. It is most rarely true that he who approaches 
the grateful task of paying tribute to one who was loved and 
honored in life is freed from the apprehension that he may sax- 
more than the record may warrant. 

No such apprehension disturbs me when I come to speak of 
Senator Hoar. On the contrary, his life was so rich in its 
great accomplishments, his character so strong and so individ- 
ualistic, his intellectual culture and attainments so high and so 
varied, and his career so long and so distinguished, in letters, 
at the bar, and in the national councils, that as I attempt these 
few words I am oppressed with the consciousness that, even if 
time permitted, my utterances would be feeble to express the 
meed of honor and of encomium which he merits and which I 
would gladly pay to his memory. 

In the ten years I have been associated with him in this 
Chamber, through eight of which I have served on the Judi- 
ciary Committee under his chairmanship, I have come to know 
and to admire him as the learned lawyer and as the wise states- 
man; as the patriot with boundless devotion to the countrv and 
pride in its institutions and in the imperishable principles of 



Address of Mr. Bacon, of Georgia 85 

its Government; as the great orator upon whose words the 
Senate was wont to hang with conscious pride, and to which 
the nation lent an ever eager ear. And withal, as time passed 
and with it was given the opportunity to know him, when 
measuring him, not in the narrow limitations of the specialist, 
but in the broad field which must be occupied by the all-round 
man, facing and personally dealing with the varied demands 
and problems and activities, social and political, of his day, I 
came to regard him as the most scholarly and the most intel- 
lectually cultivated, and the best-equipped man, not only in the 
Senate, not only in the Congress, but also among all those with 
whom it has been my fortune to come into personal contact and 
association. Doubtless it is true that in some respects he was 
excelled by some men, and that in other respects he was 
excelled by other men, for however it may have been in the 
earlier day of more contracted scope of intellectual vision, in 
this day of limitless intellectual development it is impossible 
that any man can "take all knowledge to be his province." 
But nevertheless, in the general range of capacity and acquire- 
ment, and taking him as a whole, I have never known the man 
whom, in general scholarship and intellectual culture and 
equipment, I have thought to be his superior. 

To such scholarship, to such intellectual culture and attain- 
ment he added great personal industry, intensity of conviction, 
and unfaltering purpose. 

But, sir, in the brief moment that I may to-day properly 
occupy it is not for me to speak of him in this larger view. 
Nevertheless, omitting the general consideration which is now 
impracticable, I may briefly advert to a few characteristics and 
recent incidents in his career. 

If there was with him one sentiment deeper and more 
intense than all others, it was his love of the right of personal 



86 Life and Character of George J 7 . Hoar 

liberty and his devotion to the right of self-government. 
Born on the spot where in 1775 was fired the first shot which 
echoed round the world the proclamation of personal and 
political freedom, his heart was ever true to these fundamental 
rights, warmed as it was by the blood which had coursed 
through the veins of his patriotic sires. To their defense 
from all assaults, whether from friend or foe, he was ever 

Constant as the northern star, 
< if whose true-fixed and resting quality 
There is no fellow in the firmament. 

Striking was the evidence of this devotion which he gave 
within recent years. He was one of the founders of the 
political party of which he was a most distinguished member. 
For near half a century he was its zealous and ardent adherent, 
and for the greater part of the time he stood in the front rank 
of its leadership. He was devoted to its principles and proud 
nt its history and of its achievements. He loved it as one 
lows those of his bone and of his flesh. Nevertheless when 
that party to whose service he was thus consecrated did those 
things and advocated those policies which in his opinion 
violated the right of personal and political liberty, and which 
in his judgment violated the right of self-government, he, 
with the loved and venerable Morrill, of Vermont, took issue 
with his party, and during the years when that controversy 
raged fiercely here he battled for those rights with a power 
and eloquence and an untiring pertinacity which have never 
been surpassed in this Chamber; and those of us who in that 
fierce controversy thought as he did were honored in being 
accounted worth)' to follow him afar off. 

< )ne thing personal to him, Mr. President, I may not for- 
bear to mention. His political party has been for a generation 



Address of Mr. Bacon, of Georgia 87 

sharply at issue with the policies and the measures predomi- 
nant in the South. Throughout the lengthening years it has 

naturally resulted that in the heat of political controversy 
there have been engendered the fires of personal and political 
antagonism. 

And yet, during these same years, no one has spoken more 
kindly and in words more laudatory of the South than has 
Senator Hoar; and both in this Chamber and on the rostrum 
elsewhere he has repeatedly borne testimony to the high ideals 
and the nobility of character of the people of the South, and to 
the integrity and probity of her public men — virtues the pos- 
session of which they prize more than political power or the 
rewards that wait on political supremacy. And, sir, I am glad 
of this opportunity to thus publicly testify to the great appre- 
ciation of the South of his generous praise and to express the 
gratitude and honor in which her people will ever hold his 
memory. 

To this, Mr. President, I wish to add the expression of my 
personal sorrow for his loss. When he went hence, a great 
void was made in this Chamber, which none other can fill. 
Wise in council, strong in debate, defiant of wrong, dauntless 
in the advocacy of the right, ripe in experience, and venerable 
in years, he spoke when others were silent. 

Proud of the Senate, he was jealous of its prerogatives, and 
his prompt challenge met every attempt to invade or violate 
them. Devoted to the system and the spirit of our Govern- 
ment, he was ever the fearless and outspoken champion in their 
defense. And since he has gone from among us, when upon 
occasion they have seemed to me to be here in jeopardy, I 
have involuntarily turned to his old familiar seat, and I have 
longed for the voice that is still. 



88 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

Mr. President, Massachusetts has borne a conspicuous part 
in the history of our country. She was "the cradle in which 
young Liberty was rocked." The first blood shed in the cause 
of independence was poured out upon her soil. Since that first 
shot at Concord great has been the number of her illustrious 
sons. When she comes to enroll their names, high among 
those worthy to be chief in her pride and in her affections will 
be found that of George Frisbie Hoar. 



Address of Mr. Perkins, of California 89 



Address of Mr. Perkins, of California 

Mr. President : How great the loss of our country is in the 
death of George Frisbie Hoar will, perhaps, not be fully 
realized until time shall have enabled Americans to fully 
understand and appreciate the loftiness of his character and the 
power of his intellect. We of this body, of which he was so 
long one of its most distinguished members, have had a better 
opportunity to learn what manner of man he was than others 
of his contemporaries, and I am sure that if we can not now 
measure the true greatness of the man we are able to ascribe to 
him a place in public life from which posterity will, at least, 
not lower him. We who saw him at the close range of every- 
day life, without that perspective which is necessary to show 
the harmony of parts, recognize him as one of the greatest 
Americans, whose qualities of heart and mind we believe 
entitle him to the rank of one of the foremost men of his time 
and generation. 

Some idea of the man and of his character can be obtained 
from a mere reading of the brief sketch of his life which 
appears in Congressional publications. The bare facts there 
set forth show that from the time he began life until his death 
he stood upon a high intellectual and moral plane. His 
associates from youth were with those of elevated character 
and unusual intellectual attainments, and in this atmosphere 
he passed a long, a useful, and an unselfish life. As we learn 
more and more of the work, public and private, in which he 
was engaged, we acquire a wider and clearer conception of the 
breadth of his understanding and the wide range of his sym- 
pathies. The movements and institutions with which his name 



90 Life ami Character of George F. Hoar 

is connected form a true index of the bent of his mind and the 
aim of his efforts. In no position to which his great attain- 
ments called him is there a chance to suspect that selfish 
ambition had an opportunity to manifest itself. It is true, 
doubtless, that ambition had a place among the reasons which 
induced him to accept the positions of honor to which he gave 
the dignity of his character, but it was an ambition to serve 
others, not to serve himself. 

The colleagues of Senator Hoar in the Senate of the United 
States will, without exception, bear witness to the predominat- 
ing characteristic of his work as a public man — unselfish desire 
to promote the public good. In a word, he was a patriot in the 
highest and strictest meaning of the term. In no word that he 
uttered, in no act that he performed, was there other than the 
most sincere desire to effect something for the common good. 
We who have had the opportunity to know him personally, to 
study him as affected by the many and various conditions and 
situations which occur here, have never had reason to suspect 
that the thought of self ever shaded the meaning of a phrase 
or gave the motive for an act. Throughout his long public 
career nothing has been brought out more clearly than that the 
object of all his efforts was the well-being of the Republic — the 
peace, happiness, and prosperity of its citizens. And I think 
that the future historian who is able to make an unbiased esti- 
mate of the worth of the public men who have gone will affirm 
that of the great men who were distinguished for their love of 
country none stood before GEORGE FRISBIE Hoap. 

It is this characteristic of the great successor of the great 
men whom Massachusetts has sent to the United States Senate 
which appeals to me most strongly, and I would that I could 
impress it upon those who are ambitious to follow in his foot- 
steps in public life. It is a characteristic which was found in 



Address of Mr. Perkins, of California 91 

those who founded the Republic, maintained it through all the 
vicissitudes through which it has passed, and which must exist 
in the citizens of the Republic if the Republic is to endure. 

The patriotism of George F. Hoar was that of the men of 
'76, the men of the Revolution, the men of the civil war, to 
whom self was as naught compared with the public good. And 
his colleagues in this Chamber will readily recall many in- 
stances in which it was as clear as the sun on an unclouded day 
that his public act was performed in the knowledge that it 
exposed him to penalties which none but the strongest and 
most unselfish men are willing to invite. I think he stands 
to-day the type of the American who has made the United 
States possible, and without whom it can not long exist; and I 
can not point out a more illustrious example for young Ameri- 
cans to follow than the great statesman whose memory we here 
honor to-day. 

As long as the standard which he set for himself is the 
standard of the youth of America there need be no fear for the 
future of our country. Americans with the patriotic ideals of 
George Frisbie Hoar are an invincible defense against 
enemies from within or foes from without. 

This unselfish love of country was what made Senator Hoar, 
with his great abilities and his wide learning, a statesman in 
the broadest and highest sense. Mere politics had no place in 
his scheme of public life. While a man loyal to his party, and 
lending to it the weight of his great intellect and wide expe- 
rience, often following it, as long as there was ground for a 
reasonable and honest doubt, in paths which did not meet his 
hearty approval, he was ever ready to rise above party when 
his conscience was aroused and his reason was convinced. 
Party ties were then as cobweb shackles to his actions. First 
with him came the good of our common country. Party 



92 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

advantage and party policy were at all times secondary to 

the welfare of all the people. And such was the knowledge of 

the man by his immediate constituents, and such the absolute 

confidence in his honesty of judgment and devotion to the 

best interests of the Republic, that a resolution was reported in 

the Massachusetts legislature on the occasion of his strenuous 

opposition to party policy on the pending treaty relative to 

the Philippines, declaring that Massachusetts left her Senators 

" untrammeled in the exercise of an independent and patriotic 

judgment upon the momentous questions presented for their 

consideration." And never was implicit confidence more 

worthily placed than in George F. Hoar. In his recently 

published memoirs he sets forth his attitude as a public man as 

follows: 

I have throughout my whole public political life acted upon my own 
judgment. I have dune what I thought for the public interest, without 
much troubling myself about public opinion. I account it my 

great good fortune that, although I have never flinched from uttering 
whatever I thought and acting according to my own conviction of public 
duty, that as I am approaching fourscore years I have, almost without an 
exception, the good will of my countrymen. I have never in 

my life cast a vote or done an act in legislation that I did tlot at the time 
believe to be right — 

What a splendid sentiment! And this action we can follow 

and imitate with credit to ourselves as individual Senators and 

with honor to our country. 

I have never in my life cast a vote or done an act in legislation that I 
diil not at the time believe to be right and that I am not now willing to 
avow and to defend and debate with any champion of sufficient impor- 
tance who desires to attack it at any time and in any presence. Whether 
I am right or wrong in my opinion as to the duty of acting with and 
adherence to party, it is the result not of emotion or attachment or 
excitement, but of as cool, calculating, sober, and deliberate reflection 
as 1 am able to give to any question of conduct or duty. Many of the 
things I have done in this world which have been approved by other men, 
or have tended to give me any place in the respect of my countrymen, 
have been done in opposition, at the time, to the party to which I belonged. 



Address of Mr. Perkins, of California 93 

In all his long career in the House of Representatives and in 
the Senate not one act or word of his is recorded that would 
serve to throw suspicion upon the absolute purity of his 

motives and his almost religious zeal for the welfare of his 
country. He was always looking far into the future, which 
his great knowledge and long experience taught him has many 
and vital problems yet to be solved, and with the sagacity 
which makes of a sincere, a patriotic, and an able man a true 
statesman, he sought to so guide legislation that posteritj 
should find no cause to condemn as errors the acts of the 
Congress of the United States. 

The ideals of the founders of the Republic were ever before 
him, and to maintain or attain them he devoted the great work 
of his active life. And this work was based on a thorough 
knowledge of the history and laws of his country, which he 
had made his study throughout his long career. No man 
here, probably, better understood the basic principles of our 
system of government, more deeply entered into the spirit 
which underlies it, or has followed with greater minuteness 
the development of our institutions. Recognizing that the 
rock on which the Republic is built is the Constitution, he 
devoted a lifetime to an effort to prevent that foundation of 
our republican system from being undermined and the super- 
structure rendered unsafe. 

It was not the mere lawyer, brilliant and learned as he- 
was, that studied the Constitution and worked out its bearings 
on political policies and suggested legislation; it was the 
great statesman, who sought to have every act of Govern- 
ment so rest on a sure basis of truth that progress should 
be along the straight path leading to that condition of 
universal well-being which was the aim of the founders. 



94 /-'/'' a "<1 Character of George F. Hoar 

Thus patriotism and statesmanship made of George F. 
Hoar the leading constitutional debater of his time. His 
knowledge was so minute, so exact, that he was an authority 
on all constitutional questions, and was so recognized by the 
Congress of the United States. In the interpretation of the 
Constitution and important questions as to construction he had 
important and leading parts, and to his wisdom and legal 
acumen is in great part due the safe solution of many vexed 
and vital questions which would have led less competent men 
into labyrinths where dangers lie on every side. 

But notwithstanding the eminence attained by George F. 
Hoar as a public man, his was a character of almost touch- 
ing simplicity. He had no thought of his own power or 
attainments — perhaps did not realize their extent. The key- 
note is found in his own words: 

I town to the time I was admitted to the bar, and indeed for a year later, 
my dream and highest ambition were to spend my life as what is called 
an office lawyer, making deeds and giving advice in small transactions. 
I supposed I was absolutely without capacity for public speaking. I 
expected never to be married; perhaps to earn twelve or fifteen hundred 
dollars a year, which woulrl enable me to have a room of my own in some 
quiet house, and to earn enough to collect rare books that could be had 
without much cost. 

Surely a simple life is here set forth — a life in which vulgar 
ambition had no part in anticipation, as it had no part in fact. 
Wealth was not one of the objects which the young man was 
to strive for, and it was at no time the object of his efforts. 
That his ideas of life remained unchanged from the simple 
ones of early manhood was made clear to me when, a few 
years ago, in intimate private conversation, he stated that he 
had never had a desire to be rich; that all he wished for was 
enough to procure for himself and those he loved the neces- 
saries of life, and to provide after his death for those dependent 
upon him. 



Address of Mr. Perkins, of California 95 

This is essentially the same simple personal ambition as that 
of the young lawyer just entering upon his career. And in 
the midst of a busy, active, and exacting life he clung to his 
early ambition as to the possession of books, and the scholarly 
instincts which early manifested themselves were developed 
into literary powers of great brilliancy. The intervals in his 
active life which gave leisure were passed among the books, 
which were his friends, his advisers, and his helpers; and from 
the great minds of all ages he gathered that store of rich cul- 
ture which gave charm to his speech and loftiness to his views. 
That library which he, as a young man, looked forward to as 
most desirable of possessions was the most valuable part of his 
es tate when he died. He lived the life which was to him most 
attractive, a life devoted to high thought, high endeavor, and 
high attainment, and he has left behind him that which is of 
more worth than great riches. 

The lesson — 

He says in his memoirs — 

which I have learned in life, which is impressed on me daily, and more 
deeply as I grow old, is the lesson of good will and good hope. I believe 
that to-day is better than yesterday and that to-morrow will be better than 
to-day. I believe that in spite of so many errors and wrongs and even 
crimes mv countrymen of all classes desire what is good, and not what is 
evil. 

Well may we say of this noble character: 

The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er; 

So calm are we when passions are no more; 

For then we know how vain it was to boast 

Of fleeting things too certain to be lost. 

Clouds of affection from our younger eyes, 

Conceal that emptiness which age descries. 

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, 

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made; 

Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, 

As they draw near to their eternal home. 

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, 

That stand upon the threshold of the new. 



96 Life inn/ Character of George F. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Fairbanks, of Indiana 

Mr. PRESIDENT: For more than a quarter of a century 
George Frisbik Hoak was one of the most distinguished 
figures in the United States Senate and one of the best-known 
men within the limits of the Republic. He honored the 
Senate and the Senate honored him. He cherished its best 
traditions and always upheld its dignity and power. He 
believed it among the wisest provisions of our great scheme 
of constitutional government. He felt that in the serenity of 
this Chamber the interests of the American people were secure; 
that it was one of the most potent safeguards of liberty among 
men. Its honor was very dear to him. 

He had the utmost respect for the Senatorial office and 
looked with marked disfavor upon those who seemed to lack 
in the same high appreciation of its functions and its influence. 

Senator Hciak was of a line of able Senators, men of unusual 
distinction and acknowledged capacity for public service. He 
came from a State which has commissioned her most gifted 
sons, her wisest ami ablest statesmen, to represent her here. 
The roll is a distinguished and honorable one. Among the 
number were John Ouincy Adams. Rufus Choate, Robert C. 
Winthrop, Daniel Webster. Charles Sumner, and Henry Wil- 
son, men who commanded the nation's respect by the force of 
their genius; men who were well fitted to make a nation's laws. 
They were in harmony with the spirit of our institutions. 
They were profound believers in our system of popular gov- 
ernment. They possessed in full measure the national confi- 
dence and the national admiration. Their lives and their 
services are a part of the priceless heritage of the Republic. 



Address of Mr. Fairbanks, of Indiana gj 

Senator Hoar was fit for the companionship of the greatest 
of these. The mantle which Massachusetts placed upon his 
shoulders was worthily worn by him for more than twenty-five 

years. 

He entered the Senate at an interesting period in our his- 
tory. Grave questions were in debate and great problems 
were soon to engage the enlightened and considerate judg- 
ment of the American people. He brought hither ample 
experience as a Member of the National House of Repre- 
sentatives, the reputation of an able lawyer, and the rich 
accomplishments of a man of letters. He entered this great 
arena exceptionally well equipped for its manifold duties and 
responsibilities. 

Throughout his career here he addressed himself to his 
Senatorial duties with entire singleness of purpose. He 
brought hither no divided allegiance. Neither fear nor favor 
swerved him in the discharge of his official functions. He 
never for a moment lost sight of the vital fact that he was 
the servant of the people in a republican Government. His 
ideals were lofty, and he sought to carry them into the dis- 
charge of his public duties. 

Senator Hoar was direct and candid. He had no hos- 
pitality for men who were otherwise. He was a brave and 
sincere man. He had the courage of his convictions and 
would maintain them against all comers. He was tenacious 
of his opinions, which had been wrought out by investigation 
and mature reflection, but whenever convinced that he was 
wrong he would yield to the better reason. 

He was one of the founders of the Republican party and 

one of its wisest counselors throughout his long public 

career. He was a firm believer in the virtue of its tenets, 

a powerful supporter of its administration, yet he sometimes 

S. Doc. 201, 5S-3 7 



98 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

differed with his party associates. His differences never led 
to their alienation, for they had unbounded faith in the 
absolute integrity of his purpose, in his entire veracity as a 
statesman, and in his unquenchable love of country; of his 
supreme confidence in the beneficence of the party to which 
he gave his early allegiance, and which conferred upon him 
signal honors. 

When I came to the Senate he was endeavoring to aid in 
promoting an adjustment of the unfortunate conditions in the 
island of Cuba so as to avoid an infraction of the international 
peace. When war became inevitable, he was among the first 
to raise his voice in vindication of the course upon which we 
were about to enter. He justified an appeal to the sword in 
.1 speech of uncommon power. He supported every measure 
in that national crisis. When our arms triumphed and the 
treaty of Paris was laid before the Senate, he was one of the 
most forceful in opposition to its ratification. His judgment 
led him to challenge the policy of the President and of his 
party. He lost no opportunity to make manifest his opposition 
to the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, for he regarded 
their possession as violative of the principles of our republican 
institutions. All his powers were summoned in opposition to 
a step which, in the opinion of the Administration and his 
party, was commanded by the imperative voice of national 
duty. The divergence of views was sharp, yet he did not lose 
in the confidence or in the affection of those with whom he 
had so long been in political fellowship. 

This subject was in debate before the American people 
when he was last elected to the Senate. His attitude upon 
it was not in harmony with the prevailing view of his party 
in the venerable Commonwealth he had so long served. 
Without a dissenting voice the Republicans of Massachusetts 



Address <>/ Mr. Fairbanks, of Indiana <)<; 

returned him to his seat here. He was profoundly touched 
by this renewed manifestation of the confidence of his State, 
and especially by the fact that she therein recognized his 
right to the exercise of an untrammeled judgment upon a 
question of great national significance. I know from his lips 
how deeply touched he was by this evidence of the- regard of 
the Commonwealth whose approval he valued beyond all else. 

During his entire service here there was no abatement of 
his interest in his Senatorial work. He was a diligent and 
discriminating student of all questions which engaged our 
attention, and sought in committee and upon the floor to 
promote those measures which he regarded most essential in 
the advancement of the public welfare. He was an investi- 
gator, a searcher after truth. His learning was vast, and he 
gave to the country the fullest benefit of it. For twentv 
years he was a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, 
and at the time of his death its chairman. No one during 
that period was more able and more diligent than he in con- 
sidering the numerous and difficult legal and constitutional 
questions which engaged its attention. 

Senator Hoar's life was essentially devoted to the public 
welfare. He entered the National House of Representatives 
more than a generation before his death. When he entered 
the public service he practically abandoned the practice of the 
law. He left his chosen profession after he had become well 
established in it. He turned from its alluring prospects and 
its material rewards to the service of the State, with its inade- 
quate pecuniary returns, because he believed it was his patri- 
otic duty to do so. He did not seek the opportunity to serve 
his countrymen in the wide national theater where he so long 
wrought. The people sought him. Speaking of his profes- 
sional career, he told me he had accumulated a reasonable 



ioo Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

competency, and that during his public service lit- had reduced 
it until only a comparatively small sum remained. He was, 
nevertheless, eminently satisfied with the course he had pur- 
sued. His reward was the consciousness of service performed 
for his country and his Commonwealth. He believed that here 
was the field of his best service in the public interest, and he 
declined high public honors in other departments of the Gov- 
ernment. Twice he declined the English mission, a position 
which lie would have greatly adorned. There was in his 
opinion no more honorable place than the Senate and none 
better suited to his taste and his talents. 

Senator Hoar, was a forceful debater. He frequently par- 
ticipated in the discussions of the committee and the Senate. 
He was zealous in the espousal of his cause and " neither asked 
nor gave quarter." He brought to the consideration of all 
questions large experience and wide information. He sought 
to win the deliberate judgment of men; he cared little for mere 
applause. He was sober-minded, and addressed himself assid- 
uously to the consciences and judgment of his countrymen. 
"The men to whom the American people gives its respect,'' 
said he, " and whom it is willing to trust in the great places of 
power are intelligent men of propriety, dignity, and sobriety." 

• Hir friend died as he would have wished — with the harness 
on. To the last he was in the full possession of his intellectual 
faculties. He died full of years, full of honors — respected and 
loved everywhere. No stain rests upon his illustrious name. 
He awaited death with composure, lis the just may do. After 
he had taken to his bed with an illness he thought temporary, 
he wrote me. He said the physicians told him that no one 
died of his ailment. He talked lightly of it, and his letter 
scintillated with that subtle wit so familiar to us. 



Address of Mr. Fairbanks^ of Indiana 101 

When all that science and love could do had been done, and 
his recovery was impossible, our friend laced the future with 
uncomplaining lips. A few days before the end he said, "I 
believe I shall die this afternoon. I have done the best I could. 
I have always loved this town and its people." In the last 
serious moment his thought was of the people of his home, 
with whom he had been most closely associated and who never 
faltered in their allegiance to him. 

Scholar, orator, patriot, statesman, colleague, friend, we 
reverently place upon the records of the Senate the tribute of 
our affection and admiration. 



io2 Life and Character <>/ George /•'. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Pettus, of Alabama 

Mr. PRESIDENT: 1 desire also to say a few words on this 
occasion. 

The great Senator from Massachusetts to whose memory we 
have met to pay tribute was better known to those who have 
spoken than to myself. They knew him longer; and they 
knew him and associated with him and learned to honor him 
a-- a scholar and as a lawyer. I have only known him here 
in the Senate as an earnest, eminent statesman; and here- 
learned, in some degree, to appreciate his devotion to the great 
work he was selected to perform. 

My lir^t association with Senator Hoar commenced only 
eight years ago, when I was made a member of the Judiciary 
Committee, of which lie was the chairman. And his great 
ability and extraordinary experience in Congress most natu- 
rally gave him the capacity as well as an inclination to govern. 

He came of a family more distinguished for the number of 
great men than almost any other American stock; and it was 
impossible for him not to appreciate the fact of his descent 
from Roger Sherman, and his near connection with so main 
distinguished men descended from the same eminent patriot 
of the Revolution. 

It sometimes happens in republics like ours that men affect 
to care nothing for their own ancestry, and even ridicule others 
who are not of the same disposition. But the American does 
not live who would not be proud of the fact if he could truth- 
fully state that his ancestor was a signer of our Declaration 
of Independence, or served his country faithfully in our Revo- 
lutionary war. And such pride should be cultivated. It makes 



Address of Mr. Peltus, of Alabama 103 

patriots and heroes by stirring the ambition of young men to 
serve their country with all their power in peace or war, and 
to work so as to become well qualified for such service. It 
creates that spirit of high and heroic daring displayed by 
England's great admiral at Trafalgar, when he exclaimed: 
"Victory or Westminster Abbey!" and gained the greatest 
naval victory and a most honored place in Westminster Abbey 
on the same day. 

You have in this Capitol a noble chamber, filling and to be 
filled with bronze and marble statues of great Americans. 
Why did you dedicate it to that use? To honor the dead, 
surely, but not merely to that end; it was also to fire the souls 
of generations living and to come, and to teach them that — 

Honest toil is holy service; 
Faithful work is prayer ami praise; 

and that no labor is too great, no danger too imminent, no 
endurance too long in the service of their country, if they aim 
to be among those honored for wise and faithful counsel or 
for brave and noble deeds. 
The poet has said: 

Princes and lords may flourish or may fade; 

A breath can make them, as a breath has made. 

But this is not true in our country. Here the real nobleman 
is made not by the breath of a king, but by his own work. 

Senator Hoar no doubt inherited strong brain power, and 
he improved that power by constant, diligent work, and the 
two combined made him the eminent statesman he was. His 
brain power and work made him known to the people of his 
State when he was a young man, and they gave him full 
opportunity for obtaining distinction among the statesmen of 
the Union. 

He was of the highest type of New England statesmen; and 



104 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

he served his State faithfully and honestly in the National 
Legislature for nearly forty years, first in the House of Rep- 
resentatives and afterwards in the Senate, and continuously. 
For at each recurring election the people of Massachusetts 
said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant!' 

They knew him to lie what has been called "the noblest 
work of Cod," and they knew his inherited brain force and 
his almost unequaled work, and they loved and honored him 
and were proud of him. And he loved them, and served 
them with a devotion and diligence never surpassed. 



Address of Mr. Gorman, of Maryland 105 



Address of Mr. Gorman, of Maryland 

Mr. President: Again, within a week, we gather to pay 
tribute to one of the nation's great men gone to rest. This 
one differed in many respects from him whose memory we 
celebrated on last Saturday. He was more tolerant, more 
optimistic. His sympathies were wider and less deliberate. 
With learning carefully and richly stored, with philosophies 
mellowed by observation, with judgments shaped by charity 
and love, he was at once wise and kind, enlightened and 
indulgent, firm yet eager to excuse. His beliefs were builded 
on the rock of deep conviction. His standards were the 
growth of prayerful and conscientious analysis. 

Equipped with a keen and penetrating intellect, he could 
make allowances for those less gifted. 

A man of pure and stainless life, he could feel for the 
victims of temptation. Fixed in his own creed, he was ever 
ready to recognize the sincerity of those who preached a 
different faith. 

It was George F. Hoar who said: 

If I were to select the man of all others with whom I have served in the 
Senate who seemed to me the most perfect example of the quality and 
character of the American Senator, I think it would he Edward C. Walthall, 
of .Mississippi. 

There is the nature and the measure of the man. 

What a wonderful career was his ! He saw the American 
Union grow from infancy to its perfected power and propor- 
tions. Almost the whole procession of its tragedies and 
tumults passed beneath his eye. Born before Andrew Jackson 
became President, he was a contemporary of, and a participant 



io6 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

ill, all the great national crises which followed the Missouri 
Compromise of 1850. 

Of every evolution that influenced the country's destiny he 
was a witness. In each of its most important dramas he was 
an actor. During his lifetime the gigantic problems, bora 
with the Republic and fur half a century threatening its 
very existence, were carried, if often through blood and 
terror and calamity, to permanent solutions. 

He was a factor in those colossal equations which reconciled 
the incompatabilities of the States' rights and the Federal 
philosophies. He took part in the supreme perils of the 
slavery agitation, the stupendous civil war in which it culmi- 
nated, and the crowning anxieties of that transition from 
chaos to ordered harmony which we familiarly describe as 
the period of reconstruction. 

It may be said of him that he saw the nation emerge from 
its swaddling clothes ami grow to the full measure of the 
raiment of maturity and empire. He lived to hail the reali- 
zation of his patriotic dream of the only passion he ever 
harbored in his loyal heart - the definite rehabilitation of 
our political and social structure. 

IK- was throughout it all a man of infinite compassion, of 
comprehensive sympathies, of noble and unselfish impulse. 
He was a partisan without rancor, an antagonist without 
bitterness, a friend without reservations and conditions, a 
conqueror without vengeance, a loser without resentment. 
He passed with clean hands and unstained honor through 
temptations that shook the souls of smaller men. He gazed 
with pure, unclouded brow on carnivals of profligacy in which 
proud reputations were swept away and long lives of right- 
eousness went out in degradation. His was a heart wdiere 
charity abode always. He recognized the virtue of his 



Address of Mr. Gorman, oj Maryland i<>- 

opponents; he never claimed perfection for himself or his 
coadjutors. He thought first of his country, of his patriotic 
obligations, and next of his party and his private welfare. 

And his is a career, Mr. President, which the American 
youth may study in a spirit of reverence and emulation. It 
is the record of a brilliant and a noble life. It constitutes 
another of those glorious and beautiful traditions in which 
the Republic is already so fabulously rich. As long as men 
admire courage, self-sacrifice, devotion, high sense of duty, 
and patriotism attuned to martyrdom, so long will the memory 
of GKORGE F. Hoar be held in honor and affection. 



io8 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Defew, of New York 

Mr. President: It is asserted by many writers that the 
Senate lias seen its best days. They claim that the statesmen 
who made this body famous in the earlier periods of our history 
have not had any successors of equal merit or genius. The 
Senate does not change, but the questions which it must discuss 
and decide are new with each generation. There is a broad 
distinction between the elucidation and solving of problems 
which relate to the foundations and upbuilding of institutions, 
which are vital to their preservation and perpetuity, and the 
materialistic issues of finance, commercialism, and industrial- 
ism. The one arouses in the orator every faculty of his mind, 
every possibility of his imagination, every aspiration of his 
soul, and every emotion of his heart, while the others demand 
mainly the aptitude and experience of the college professor or 
the expert or student on subjects which affect the fortunes of 
the factory, the mill, the furnace, and the farm. 

Webster could command the attention of listening Senates 
and of an anxious and expectant country with orations which 
have become part of our best literature and educate the youth 
of our schools on interpretations of the Constitution of the 
United States upon which depend the life or death of liberty. 
But Webster could hold only temporary interest and a narrow 
audience on tariff schedules upon wool or lumber, upon iron or 
cotton fabrics, or upon bimetallism, or the single standard. 
Hamilton and Jefferson and their antagonistic schools were 
creating with little precedent to guide them a form of govern- 
ment in which liberty and law would give the largest protection 



Address of Mr. Depew, oj New York 109 

to the individual citizen and maintain order and promote the 
greatest happiness of the mass. The one believed these results 
could best be obtained by centralized power, the other by Re- 
distribution among the States. There was then brought into 
play the loftiest creative and constructive genius which the 
world has known. 

Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, the Senatorial triumvirate, 
who attained the zenith of Senatorial fame, made their repu- 
tations and that of this body upon the discussion of implied 
powers in the Constitution, affecting not only the nation's 
life but the destruction or perpetuity of human slavery. 
Webster, in that immortal speech, which educated millions of 
our youth to rush to arms when the Republic was in danger, 
preached from the text of "Liberty and union, now and for- 
ever, one and inseparable." Calhoun saw clearly the extinc- 
tion of slavery with the growth of the country, and brought 
to the defense of the system resources, intellectual and log- 
ical, never equaled: while Clay postponed the inevitable 
through compromises, which were adopted because of his 
passionate pleas of marvelous eloquence for peace and unity. 
So in the acute stage of the controversy, which resulted in 
the civil war and ended in the enfranchisement of the slaves, 
Seward here and Lincoln on the platform, were appealing to 
that higher law ot conscience, which uplifts the orator and 
audience to a spiritual contemplation of things material. 

Happily the work of the founders in one age and the 
saviors in another has left to us mainly the development upon 
industrial lines of our country's resources and capabilities. 
We produced no heroes in over half a century, and yet when 
the war drums called the nation to arms, Grant, from the 
tannery, and Lee, from a humble position in the Army, rose 
to rank among the great captains of all the ages. Had the 



iio Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

civil war never occurred, Grant would have lived a peaceful 
and modest mercantile life in a country town of Illinois, and 
Lee would have passed the evening of his days in equal 
obscurity upon the retired list of the United States Army. 
Better, if the contest can be honorably averted, that a hero 
should never be known than that his discovery should be 
brought about by the calamities of war, the sacrifice of hun- 
dreds of thousands of lives, and the distress, demoralization, 
and devastation of civil strife. 

We pay our tribute to-day to one who in any of these great 
periods would have stood beside the most famous; to one who, 
having the experience of a longer continuous term in Congress 
than any other citizen of Massachusetts ever enjoyed, testified 
on all occasions to the increasing power, growth, and benefi- 
cent influence of this body, and to the ever-advancing purity of 
American public life. His education and opportunities, his 
singularly intimate connection with the glorious past and the 
activities of the present, made him a unique and in a measure 
an isolated figure. He was educated under conditions and in 
surroundings which developed for the public service conscience, 
heart, and imagination. A lawyer of the first rank by heredity, 
study, and practice, he nevertheless approached public ques- 
tions, not from the standpoint of the pleader, but the orator; 
not as an advocate with a brief, but as a patriot with a mission. 
He cast his first vote in 1S47, when all the fire of his youth 
had been aroused by tlie slavery agitation. He came actively 
into politics the year after, when the Democratic party had 
divided into the Free Soil and slavery men, and the Whig 
party was split between tlie adherents ot conscience or cotton. 
He began his career upon the platform and his preparation for 
the public service as a conscience Whig. 



Address of Mr. Depew, of New York in 

He saw the preparation, through the American or Know- 
Nothing party, in which Whigs and Democrats were acting 
together, of an organization upon broader lines. No one 
worked harder or more intelligently for the fusion of men of 
opposite creeds on industrial questions, but of one mind in 
opposition to slavery, into a National Constitutional Anti- 
slavery party. When that party came into existence in 1856 
with a Presidential candidate and platform it had no more 
ardent sponsor for its faith and its future than Senator Hoar. 
A party whose fundamental creed was liberty for all men of 
every race and color appealed to the poetic and sentimental 
side of our friend and to the revolutionary ideas with which 
he was saturated. He came to believe that the worst which 
the Republican party might do would be more beneficial to 
the country than the best which its opponent was capable of. 
Though often differing from his party associates, his combat 
was to accomplish his purposes within the lines. He bowed 
to the will of the majority in his action, without surrender- 
ing his individual convictions as to the wisdom of the policy. 
He claimed, and with much reason, that the party had come 
after repeated trials, in many instances, to his way of think- 
ing, and if those who went outside of the breastworks and 
lost all influence had remained with him his ideas would 
sooner have been adopted. We have here the explanation 
of the only criticism which has ever been passed upon his 
public acts. As in the Philippine and Panama questions, 
where his eloquence gave comfort to the opposition and 
grieved his friends, his votes supported the position of the 
majority and the policies of the Administration. 

It was a high privilege to be a member of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee of the Senate under his chairmanship. It was a couit 



112 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

presided over by a great lawyer. With courteous deference to 
the members, bills were sent to subcommittees, but when the 
subcommittee made its report they found that the questions 
had been exhaustively examined before by the chairman. The 
subcommittee which had perfunctorily done its work received, 
in the form of a polite statement and exposition of the case, the 
report which, if they had attended to their duties, they ought 
to have made. This work required not only vast legal knowl- 
edge and accurate judgment, but prodigious industry. It was 
that rare condition of mind where work becomes a habit, and 
with Senator Hoar, when the committee or the Senate or law 
or literature failed to give him occupation he would pass the 
idle hours in translating Thucydides or some other Greek author 
into English. 

In the examination at the close of the last session, before the 
Committee on Privileges and Elections, of the president and 
apostles of the Mormon Church, himself a close student of ill 
theologies and an eminent Unitarian, he was aroused by the 
claim of divine inspiration for the words and acts of the Mormon 
apostles. He drew from President Smith the statement that 
the action of his predecessor. President Woodruff, in reversing 
the doctrine of polygamy, heretofore held by the church, was 
directly inspired by Cod. and then made him testify that, 
though living under the inspiration of the presidency of the 
church, he was also living in direct violation of that revelation 
by remaining a polygamist. In the course of a long cross- 
examination he drew from Apostle Lyman statements of 
doctrine and beliefs, and subsequently contradictions of these 
positions, and then forced the apostle to swear that both the 
assertion and the contradiction were inspired by (rod. 

At the age of 43 he was at the crossroads of his career. 
He had reached a position at the bar which placed within 



Address of Mr. Depew, of New York 113 

his grasp the highest rewards of the profession of the law. 
The country was entering upon an era of speculation, of 
railroad building, the bankruptcy and reorganization of com- 
binations of capital in the creation and consolidation of 
corporations, which called for the highest talents and the 
best equipment of lawyers. Questions as to the power of the 
General Government over corporations created by States and 
the powers of the States as to limitations and confiscations 
of corporations engaged in interstate commerce interested 
capital and labor, shippers and investors. The largest fees 
and fortunes ever known in the history of the practice of 
the law came to those who demonstrated their ability during 
these wonderful years. On the threshold of this temple of 
fortune and fame at the bar Mr. Hoar was elected to the 
United States Senate. He knew that he lived in a State 
whose traditions were to keep its public men who merited 
its confidence continuously in Congress. He felt that in the 
great questions still unsolved which had grown out of the 
civil war and the marvelous development of the country he 
could perform signal public service. His decision was made. 
The courts lost a great lawyer, the Senate gained a great 
statesman, and he lived and died a poor man. 

I spent a memorable night with Mr. Gladstone when in a 
reminiscent mood, and with a masterful discrimination and 
eloquence he conversed upon the traditions of the House of 
Commons during the sixty years of his membership. As the 
stately procession of historic men and measures came into 
view, they were inspired by the speaker with all the charac- 
teristics and methods of their period. The changes which 
had occurred were detailed by a master who loved and revered 
the Commons. Senator Hoar would do this for the thirty- 
seven years of his activities in Congress, but with a wit and 
S. Doc. 201, 5S-3 S 



114 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

humor which Gladstone lacked. He remembered the sarcasm, 
or the ridicule, or the epigrarn, or the witticism, or the illus- 
tration which had not only illumed but ended the debate, and 
the opposing del later. 

We read with wonder of the nights when Samuel Johnson 
gathered about him Goldsmith and Burke and Reynolds and 
Garrick ; and Boswell could make immortal volumes of their 
conversations, especially at this time when conversation is 
becoming a lost art, because the shop has invaded the drawing- 
room and the dinner table, and cards have captured society. 

But Senator Hoar knew his favorites among the Greek and 
Roman classics, and the Bible and Shakespeare by heart. He 
could quote with a familiarity of frequent reading and retentive 
memory from the literature of the period of Queen Elizabeth 
and of Queen Anne, as well as the best of modern authors, and 
he was a member of that coterie which met weekly at Parker's, 
in Boston, where Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whittier, and others 
reproduced for our day, and in better form, the traditions of 
the Johnsonian Parliament, and where the Senator and his 
brother were the quickest and the wittiest of the crowd. 

Whether in conversation or debate there never has been in 
the American Congress a man so richly cultured and with all 
his culture so completely at command. 

The statesmen of the Revolution were with Senator Hoar 
living realities. The men of the present were passing figures, 
fading into obscurity, compared with these immortals. In a 
remarkable speech he said of the signers of the Declaration: 
"We, not they, are the shadows." On his father's side, his 
grandfather, two great-grandfathers, and three uncles were in 
Lincoln's company at Concord Bridge, and his mother was a 
daughter of Roger Sherman, whom he thought the wisest and 
ablest of the members of the Continental Congress. He was 



Address of Mr. Depew, of New York 115 

the only person who signed all four of the great state papers 
to which the signatures of the Delegates of the diffefenl 
Colonies were attached: The Association of 1774. the Articles 
of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, and the 
Constitution of the United States. 

His mother remembered, as a little girl, sitting on Washing- 
ton's knee and hearing him talk, and her sister, the mother 
of William M. Evarts, when a child of 11, opened the door 
for General Washington as he was leaving the house after his 
visit to her father, Roger Sherman. The General, with his 
stately courtesy, "put his hand on her head and said, ' My 
little lady, I wish you a better office.' She dropped a courtesy 
and answered, quick as lightning, 'Yes, sir; to let you in.' 
He lived all his life in this atmosphere of his youth. The 
marvelous results of the working of the principles of the 
charter framed in the cabin of the Mayflower for "just and 
equal laws, ' ' and of the Declaration of Independence in the 
development of orderly liberty for his countrymen, convinced 
him that the same rights and privileges would end as happily, 
after trial, with the negroes of the South and the people of the 
Philippine Islands and of the Russian Empire. It was a matter 
with him, not of pride or boastfulness, but of sustaining power 
under the responsibilities that in every Congress from the 
beginning had been a representative of the Sherman clan. I 
was distantly related to him by the same tie, and he exhibited 
an elder brotherly and almost fatherly watchfulness and care 
for me when I entered the Senate. 

His cousins, William M. Evarts and Roger Minot Sherman, 
were the foremost advocates of their periods, his father 
eminent at the bar, and his brother Attorney-General of the 
United States, and yet he would have been the equal of 
either as a law\ T er if he had climbed for its leadership. It 



ii6 Life diiif Character of George F. Hoar 

has been the high privilege of his colleagues here to meet, 
converse, work, and debate with a Mayflower Puritan, 
possessed of all the culture and learning of the twentieth 
century, but with the virtues, the prejudices, the likes and 
dislikes, the vigor and courage of the Pilgrim Fathers, 
neither softened nor weakened by the looseness of creeds nor 
the luxury of living of to-day. As our friend the Senator 
from Massachusetts [Mr. Lodge] said in his most discrimi- 
nating and eloquent eulogy — the best, I think, I have ever 
heard as a tribute of an associate and friend — Senator Hi iak 
would have died like a martyr for his principles. In 1850 
he delivered a speech in Mechanics' Hall, at Worcester, upon 
the evils of slavery and the crime of its extension into the 
Territories, which attracted general attention and was widely 
published. Fifty-four years afterwards he was again before 
an audience in Mechanics' Hall, composed of the children 
and grandchildren of the first. 

The dread summons had then come to him, and he had 
but few days to live. The old warrior spoke with the fire 
of his early manhood, but his message to his neighbors and 
countrymen, after a half century, was not of war, as before, 
but 1 if peace, line, and triumph. The progress and develop- 
ment of the Republic during these fifty years of liberty was 
his theme. He looked joyously upon the past and present 
and was full of hope and confidence for the future. He had 
finished his work and performed a great part in great events 
of great moment for his country and humanity, and he left 
to his contemporaries and posterity the brilliant example of 
a life nobly lived. 



Address of Mr. McComas, of Maryland u; 



Address of Mr. McComas, of Maryland 

Mr. President: The Senate dedicated this day to the 
memory of a great Senator. Massachusetts sent the younger 
Adams, Webster, Choate, and Sumner, and later sent George 
Frisbie Hoar to the greatest legislative body in the world. 
Those great names belong to the whole country, and Senator 
Hoar's fame forever associates his name with that illustrious 
company. He, too, has become an historic figure. His death 
robs Massachusetts of her foremost citizen and takes away 
from the nation its highest examplar of the scholar and 
statesman. Without distinction of party, creed, or color, the 
whole people lament their great loss. 

This Senate Chamber was the place of his achievement and 
renown during a third of a century. In the last year of his 
life he wrote: "I had an infinite longing for my home and 
my profession and my library. But the fates sent me to the 
Senate, and have kept me there, until I am now the man 
longest in continuous legislative service in this country, and 
have served in the United States Senate longer than any 
other man who has represented Massachusetts. ' ' He came to 
the House in 1869. He was promoted to the Senate eight 
years later, and served until his death in 1904. At the cen- 
tennial celebration of the establishment of the seat of govern- 
ment at Washington, which occurred in the first year of this 
new century, he spoke eloquently of the leading statesmen of 
the last century, and especially of those who were his con- 
temporaries; and his closing words proved personally prophetic. 
"Their work, " he said, "is almost done. They seem to 



nS Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

.survive for a brief period only that the new century may clasp 
hands with the old, and that they may bring to the future the 
benediction of the past." 

After a period all too brief he, too, passed away, a veteran 
statesman whose life work was done. 

In those last years, unmindful of his age, with unfailing 
vigor, with unrivaled brilliancy of speech, inspired by a love 
of liberty which was inbred, he waged continuous warfare 
upon the Administration's Philippine policy, which has been 
approved by the country, ami, as I believe, by its results. 
Those of us who differed with v Senator Hoar about that 
great issue were compelled to admire his lofty eloquence, his 
keen wit and repartee, his learning, his resourcefulness, his 
high ideals, his courage, and his loyalty to his convictions. 
He obeyed his conscience in scorn of consequence. 

A popular and long-trusted leader of his party in the 
Senate, he suffered with fortitude the pain of separation from 
the associates of a lifetime, because he believed his party 
had departed from the path of Sumner and Lincoln. 

It may be there is something in the New England envi- 
ronment to account for the unbroken line of Xew England 
statesmen, now gone, who have successively in each genera- 
tion opposed every expansion of the territory of the Republic. 
It is fortunate for the country, as I believe, that the most 
eminent living statesmen of Xew England have been in 
sympathy with the whole country in its latest territorial 
expansions, have been potential in its beginnings, its devel- 
opment, and its successes. 

Senator Hoar was the last of the conspicuous leaders who 
joined in the great movement that abolished slavery. To 
him the Republican party was the last child of freedom. In 
one of the most valuable ami most charming autobiographies 



Address of Mr. McComas, of Maryland 119 

of modern times, he tells us, "I became of age at just 
about the time when the Free Soil party, which was the 
Republican party in another form, was born. In a very 
humble capacity I stood by its cradle. It awakened in my 
heart in early youth all the enthusiasm of which my nature 
was capable, an enthusiasm which from that day to this has 
never grown cold. No political party in history was ever 
formed for objects so great and noble. And no political 
party in history was ever so great in its accomplishment for 
liberty, progress, and law." 

The Senator voices thus the Puritan sentiment of his great 
State. He loved the Puritans and he loved his State. His 
family name through seven generations belongs to the list of 
Massachusetts worthies. Some of his ancestors were illustrious 
Americans. Said he: "I am descended from the early 
Puritans of Massachusetts in every line of descent." It is not 
strange that the sense of justice and of liberty in Senator Hoar 
instinctively opposed in a material age the selfishness of com- 
mercialism. Again and again he offered moral and poetic 
protest against the materialistic standards of our day. 

He defended the right of asylum of the Chinese upon our 
soil. He espoused the cause of the insurgent Filipinos because 
of his concern for their liberties and because he feared our 
possession of the Philippine Archipelago meant its commercial 
exploitation. He was at all times solicitous for the welfare of 
our Indian wards. He was the ever-ready champion o f the 
colored race, their sure friend in their helplessness, their 
sympathizer in their advancement. It seemed to me that 
Senator Hoar was incapable of prejudice against man or 
woman, race or creed. 

The product of Concord and of Harvard, the friend of 
Emerson, the great Senator was essentially a liberal in faith 



120 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

and opinion. He fought religious prejudice. He urged his 
Protestant countrymen not to forget that the religious perse- 
cution of which they cherished the hitter memory was the 
result of the spirit of the age, and not of one form of religious 
faith. A year ago in the Senate, in the speech to which the 
distinguished Senator from Xew York [Mr. Depew] has so 
recently and so eloquently made reference, he spoke of Charles 
Carroll, the last of the signers. Said Senator Hoar: "Charles 
Carroll was a devoted Catholic. He belonged to that church 
which preserved for mankind religion, learning, literature, and 
law through the gloomy centuries known as the Dark Ages. 
Vet it is the only denomination of Christians against which 
anything of theological bitterness or bigotry seems to have sur- 
vived amid the liberality of our enlightened day." 

To weigh the career of a great Senator by the statutes 
associated with his name is to weigh his merits by the 
apothecary's scales. We may not recall Senator Hoar's 
paternity of the Presidential succession act or his part in 
fashioning the bankruptcy law, or the antitrust law, or his 
share in framing or amending a hundred important measures. 
We can never forget his love of country, which was a passion, 
the many laborious inspiring years he devoted to his country's 
service, his great intellectual powers, his learning, his culture, 
his profound knowledge of his country's history, his oratory, 
his lofty character, his pure and noble life. 

Senator Hoar was the best example of the scholar in public 
life. He was the most scholarly statesman; he loved learning; 
he loved books. His long experience in great affairs, his keen 
habit of observation, saved him from overestimating the value 
of books, yet it was ever a delight to hear him talk about 
books. When he tells us of days >pent in London in exam- 
ining precious old book-, and rare editions, he adds: "The 



Address of Mr. JlfcComas, of Maryland i _• i 

experience was like having in my hands the costliest rubies 
and diamonds." 

Machiavelli, of such sinister renown, and our great American 
Senator, of such high mind and stainless life, were as wide 
apart as the centuries which separate their careers. But 
Senator Hoar at Worcester might have written a letter to a 
friend very like that in which Machiavelli gives a friend of his 
a picture of himself and of his daily life at San Casciano: 
"But when evening falls I go home and enter my writing 
room. On the threshold I put off my country habit, and 
array myself in royal courtly garments. Thus worthily attired 
I make my entrance into the ancient courts of the men of old, 
where they receive me with love, and where I feed upon that 
food which only is my own and for which I was born. I feel 
no shame in conversing with them and asking them the reason 
of their actions. They, moved by their humanity, make 
answer; for four hours' space I feel no annoyance, forget all 
care; poverty can not frighten nor death appall me. I am 
carried away to their society." 

In like glorious company during his long and laborious life 
Senator Hoar found solace and delight. He shared that 
ecstasv. It was therefore a characteristic utterance when he 
said: "If one were now to place in my hands, as a gift, a 
million of dollars. I doubt whether it would produce in me 
any unusual emotion." 

I have carefully observed the Senate for twenty-odd years. 
It is my belief that there are usually comparatively few rich 
men among its members, and those often work hardest. If 
they are rich they do not forget to toil terribly. Most of its 
members are usually men of modest income, who might have 
gained riches in private station. Some are poor men. It is 
well with the Republic while this remains true of this Senate. 



122 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

It is well that near the close of his long career Senator Hoar. 
in proud humility, wrote, "during all this time I have never 
been able to hire a house in Washington. My wife and I 
have experienced the varying fortune of Washington board- 
ing houses, sometimes very comfortable, and a good deal of 
the time living in a fashion to which no mechanic earning 
two dollars a day would subject his household." The con- 
solations he sorely needed he found in higher things. 

In this material age, when the pursuit of money is so 
eager, so general, and so often successful, the memory of 
the life of our great Senator, as we now look back upon it, 
conies upon a people struggling for great accumulation, with 
that "unrest which men miscall delight," like a benediction. 
" Tenui musam meditamur a vena." 

That noble life has ended, and when we sum up what he 
has done, when we see how important, how useful, how 
varied, has been the work of his life, we exult while we 
lament. Scholar, statesman, patriot, poor in worldly fortune, 
he accepted and fulfilled a vow of poverty, to give the best 
years of his life to his country, and yet he died one of the 
richest of men in treasures that are priceless. 



Address of Mr. Crane, of Massachusetts 123 



Address of Mr. Crane, of Massachusetts 

Mr. President: I can not hope to add anything to the 
eloquent and heartfelt tributes which have just been paid to 
the memory of the Hon. George Frisbie Hoar by those 
who have been so long associated with him in public life. 
Such long and intimate association has enabled them to speak 
truthfully and convincingly of his great ability, his ripe schol- 
arship, his exalted patriotism, his broad statesmanship, and 
the great value of his services in the Congress of the United 
vStates. When it became known that his life was ended the 
people of his State were touched by the messages of love and 
sympathy which came from all sections of our country, and they 
will deeply appreciate the words of sincere affection, respect, 
and admiration spoken here to-day by his fellow-Senators. 

The people of Massachusetts had faith in Senator Hoar. 
They knew that his ideals were high, that he was always 
actuated by a sense of duty, that his sole aim was to do what 
he believed to be right. He always served them with absolute 
fidelity. Not for one moment during his long career did he 
lose their confidence. They never questioned his devotion to 
principle. 

It has been truthfully said that no man was nearer to the 
great heart of Massachusetts than Senator Hoar. Throughout 
our Commonwealth there is a deep sense of personal loss. 
The sorrow is genuine. Grief at his death, however, is not at 
all restricted to party or State. You all know how he loved 
his home and his State, with what pride and affection he 



124 Life " ;/ "' Character oj George F. Hoar 

always referred to his beloved Massachusetts, hut he believed 
that the man who loves his household and his kindred and his 
town and his State best will love his country best, and his life 
was given not to his home and his State alone, hut to his 
country. 

One of the characteristics which made Senator Hoar so 
much respected and beloved was his freedom from race or creed 
prejudice. With all his might he hated bigotry and intoler- 
ance. Narrowness and petty prejudice were abhorrent to 
him, and he never hesitated to denounce them. It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, that his death has been recognized by all 
citizens, regardless of race or religion or politics, as a national 
calamity. 

Senator Hoar had not only a great brain but a great heart. 
His sympathies were world-wide, and he was recognized as 
a friend of the oppressed, not only in his own country but 
throughout the world. Injustice and tyranny wherever found 
excited his deepest indignation, and his heart went out to all 
peoples struggling for liberty and independence. 

To-day there is mourning, deep and sincere, but we can even 
now rejoice because of the record he has made. It is without 
stain. He was one of those who served his fellow-men, and the 
world is happier and better because- he has lived in it. We 
rejoice because during all of his long life he was true to the 
highest standards. We are thankful for his brave, pure, and 
noble life, for it will be an inspiration to his countrymen during 
all the years that are to come. 

Mr. President, I ask for the adoption of the resolution I send 
to the desk. 

The President pro tempore. The resolution submitted by 
the junior Senator from Massachusetts will be read. 



Address <>/ Mr. Crane, of Massachusetts 125 

The Secretary read the resolution, as follows: 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect ti> the deceased the Senate 
<lt > now adjourn. 

The President pro tempore. The question is on agreeing 
to the resolution. 

The resolution was uuaninously agreed to; and the Senate 
1 at 4 o'clock and 30 minutes p. m. ) adjourned until Monday, 
January 30, 1905, at 12 o'clock meridian. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE 

December 5, 1904. 
message from the senate. 

A message from the Senate, by Mr. Parkinson, its reading 
clerk, announced that the Senate had passed the following 
resolutions: 

Resolved, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
of the Hon. George F. Hoar, late a Senator from the State of Massa- 
chusetts. 

Resolved, That the Secretary communicate a copy of these resolutions 
to the House of Representatives. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of the two 
Senators wliose deaths have just been announced the Senate do now 
adjourn. 

DEATH OF SENATOR HOAR. 

Mr. GiLLETT, of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, it is my pain- 
ful duty, representing the Massachusetts delegation, to make 
official announcement to the House of the death of Senator 
George Frisbie Hoar, at his home in Worcester, Mass., on 
the 30th of September last. 

The details of his long illness were doubtless familiar to you 
all, and I have no doubt that in all parts of the country you 
sympathized with the people of Massachusetts in the loss of 
their distinguished lawyer, scholar, orator, statesman, patriot, 
and philanthropist. Precedent does not permit now any 
attempt to express our feeliugs of sorrow at his death or pride 
in his life, but at a fitting time we shall ask that the House set 
aside a day for the consideration of his character and his public 



i 28 Proceedings i/i the House 

services. I move the adoption now of the resolution which I 
send to the Clerk's desk. 
The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the House has heard with profound sorrow of the death 
of the Hon. GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR, a Senator of the United States from 
the State of Massachusetts. 

Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memories of the late 
Senators QuAV and Hoar the House do now adjourn. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate 
and transmit a copy thereof to the families of the deceased Senators. 

The resolution was agreed to; and accordingly (at 1 2 o'clock 
and 52 minutes) the House adjourned until to-morrow at 12 
o'clock noon. 

January 30, 1905. 

memorial addresses on the late senator george 
frisbie hoar. 

Mr. LOVERING. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
Sunday, February 12, at \2 o'clock, be set apart for paying 
tribute to the Hon. Georgh Frisbie Hoar, late United States 
Senator from Massachusetts. 

The Speaker. The gentleman from Massachusetts asks 
unanimous consent that Sunday, the 12th of February, at 12 
o'clock, be set apart for memorial services to the late Senator 
Hoar of Massachusetts. Is there objection? [After a pause.] 
The Chair hears none. Of course, by unanimous consent the 
House meets on Sunday; that is implied in the request. 



memorial addresses 

Sunday, Februaiy 12, 1905. 

The House met at 12 o'clock 111. 

Mr. William J. Browning, Chief Clerk, announced that the 
Speaker had designated Hon. George P. Lawrence as Speaker 
pro tempore fur this day. 

The Chaplain, the Rev. Henry X. Couden, I). I)., offered 
the following prayer: 

Eternal Spirit, God. our heavenly Father, in response t<> a 
beautiful and long-established custom, we are assembled here 
to-day in memory of one who served his country long and 
well in both branches of the National Congress, and who, 
though dead, still lives in the hearts of his countrymen: 
whose lips, though hushed, still speak in eloquence for the 
downtrodden and oppressed; whose heart, though still, yet 
throbs in the life of his nation. A scholar, a patriot, a 
statesman, broad in his conceptions, firm in his convictions, 
with unbounded faith in God and man. We honor him fur 
what he did, and yet more for what he was. Gentle, sweet, 
tender in his home, revered by his friends, beloved by his 
neighbors, honored by his fellow-citizens. We are not here to 
mourn, though he will be missed by those near and dear to 
him, by his friends, and in the councils of the nation: but 
rather let us rejoice that he lived and wrought and left behind 
him the memory of a character worthy of all emulation. Peace 
to his ashes and youth to his soul, which we dare to hope 
sweeps on in unbroken continuity to larger conquests and. 
greater victories in the realms of eternal day. 

S. Doc. 201, 5S-3 9 129 



i j< i Memorial . Iddrt tst s 

Inspire the minds ami hearts of those who shall speak here 
to-day of his deeds and character, and God grant that, depart- 
ing, we shall leave the world a little better that we have lived 
and wrought; and everlasting praise he Thine, through Jesus 
Christ, our Lord. Amen. 

The Journal of the proceedings of yesterday was read and 
a] (proved. 

Mr. LOVEEING. Mr. Speaker, I offer the following resolu- 
tions. 

The Spkakek pro tempore. The gentleman from Massa- 
chusetts offers the following resolutions, which the Clerk will 
report. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That, in pursuance 'if the special order heretofore adopted, 
the House proceed to pay tribute to the memory of Hon. George Frisbie 
Hoar, late a Senator from the State of Massachusetts. 

Resolved, That as a particular mark of respect to the memory of the 
deceased, and in recognition of his eminent abilities as a faithful and 
distinguished public servant, the House, at the conclusion of the memo- 
rial proceedings of this day, shall stand adjourned. 

Resolved, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the Senate. 

R, solved, That the Clerk be, and is hereby, instructed to send a copy 
of these resolutions to the family of the deceased. 

The question was taken; and the resolutions were unani- 
mously agreed to. 



Address of Mr. Lovering, oj Massachusetts 131 



Address of Mr. Loverwg, of Massachusetts 

Mr. Speaker: Some men there are who have reached a great 
age and yet have lived but half lives. Senator George Fris- 
bie Hoar lived a full and complete life in the best sense. 

He touched the world at all points, and drew inspiration 
from every worthy source. 

Every waking hour found him occupied, if not in absorbing 
the riches of all knowledge, then in working out the great 
problems of civil government. 

Great men make a great nation, and no nation is greater 
than the men who make it. 

No one realized this better than Senator Hoar, and so, while 
modestly filling his own niche, he points with peculiar acumen 
and appreciation to the great men and statesmen who have con- 
trolled the destinies of nations, and especially of our own. 

The men and women whom he met were all the world to 
him. He cherished them for the good that was in them. 
That they played so important a part in his life is shown 
by the fact that in his autobiography he mentioned not less 
than a thousand men and women whom he had either met 
and known or whose lives he had studied and admired. 

American liberty was dear to him, and he would have 
everyone enjoy it. 

He abhorred manacles, whether upon himself or his fellow- 
men; whether they fettered his limbs or his conscience, his 
body or his soul. 

He could not have lived in Russia. He might have died 
in Siberia. At all events, had his lot been cast in a country 



1 3- Life (i//,/ Character oj George F. Hoar 

without a constitution, his life would have been given to 
bringing the people to the enjoyment of a free government. 

Mr. Hoar was a master of language. Words were his 
willing slaves and fell into line at his command, whether to 
overthrow an opponent in debate, to point an argument in 
court, or to illuminate a beautiful page in history. 

If occasion required, he could lash with sarcasm. It 
smarted for a time, but it never blistered. 

To see .Senator Hoar among his books in his own library 
was to see him at his best and in his happiest frame of 
mind. His books were precious to him. and while he valued 
them for their contents he would almost caress them like 
children in his fondness for them. 

Mr. Hoar was an enthusiastic and intelligent traveler. 
Historical places had for him an infinite charm, and he 
sought them out with a direct and unerring instinct. 

I remember meeting him once in the old part of London. 
Not in Temple Bar, not in Westminster, nor the Tower, 
where American travelers are wont to frequent, but down 
in the narrow lanes by Crosby House and in the old haunts 
of the early kings. 

For hours we wandered about in out-of-the-way places 
He was entirely at home, and pointed out to me spots of 
historical and literary interest of which I had never dreamed. 
He found his way about through the byways and obscure 
passages like a professional cicerone. 

Senator Hoar was early at the cradle of the Republican 
party. He stood as one of its sponsors and never forgot his 
vow to bring it to a full ami complete confirmation. 

The party did not always follow his lead; it did not always 
do a-- he would have it do; but he never forsook it. and this 
is all the more remarkable because he was a man of such 



Address 0/ Mr. Lovering, oj Massachusetts 133 

intense feelings and strong convictions. He was the best 
exponent we have ever seen of a party man. 

I could easily fall into a personal and reminiscent vein, for 
I knew Senator HOAR a large part of my life. It was he 
who first suggested to me the idea of becoming a Member of 
this House, and all through my term of service he has been 
most encouraging and helpful. 

I have not always agreed with him, hut so considerate 
was he that in differing from him I did not forfeit his r< 
nor lose his friendship. 

Probably one of the most trying periods in his public life 
was during the debate and ratification of the Spanish treaty. 

The treaty was ratified by the Senate February 6, 1899, 
late in the afternoon, and it so happened that I went over 
to the Senate next morning to ask Senator Hoar to get 
the appropriation in the river and harbor bill increased for 
Plymouth Harbor. 

A great storm had washed away a mile of breakwater, 
and I said to him that there was danger of Plymouth Rock 
being washed away. He replied very seriously, and almost 
with tears in his eyes, "Mr. hovering, Plymouth Rock was 
washed away yesterday afternoon at 4 o'clock." 

I would not refer to this chapter in his history were it 
not that while differing from him I had the utmost respect 
for his attitude upon the question, and as it was the subject 
of a brief correspondence between us at the time and that 
his letter may be on record, I take this occasion to read 
two letters that passed between us. 

House of Representatives, 
Washington, D. < '.. February j, i8gg. 
My DEAR Sj.xaTor: I trust that you are alive to tin- ureot responsi 
bility vou are taking upon yourself in defeating the treaty. 



134 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

If .[ single drop of American blood is shed, will it not bring the bitter 
execration of the American people up:n your head, to say nothing of the 
misery that will follow an inevitable business panic? 

Can it be that you, and almost you alone, of all the Republicans in the 
Senate are right and they are wrong? Can it be that the spirit of patriot- 
ism has gone out of two-thirds of your peers and rests only in one-third, 
and that third made up of the enemies of the Administration and the 
party of your life? 

You do not deplore the situation in the Philippines more than I do. 
I am opposed to imperialism, I am opposed to expansion, but believe that 
greater troubles and greater sorrows await our country from the defeat of 
the treaty than from its ratification. 

Nothing but my lifelong admiration for you, amounting almost to 
idolatry, gives me the right to speak to you like this. 

It may be said that the question is greater than any party, but is it 
greater than the people? I believe that the people throughout the coun- 
try would, by an overwhelming majority, vote to ratify the treaty. 
I remain, yours, very sincerely, 

Wm. C. Lovering. 

Hon. George F. Hoar. 

United States Senate, Washington, D. C. 

Committee on the Judiciary, 

United States Senate, 
Washington, D. C, February j, /Spy. 

MY Dear Sir: I feel deeply the responsibility that rests upon me. 
Hut I must do my duty as God gives me to see it. He never gave me to 
see anything more clearly since I stood with the little band of Free Soilers 
in my youth, and again with the little band of men who resisted the 
Kn< iw-Nothing craze in 1854, than I see my duty in this matter. I do not 
think you know how many good and brave men in Massachusetts, earnest 
Republicans, zealous party workers, young men and old, are with me on 
this question. I know, too, how many men in the Senate who feel con- 
strained by mere party fidelity or a desire to stand by the President to 
vote for the treaty loathe and abhor it as much as I do. But my course 
was taken without knowing who would stand by me or who would differ 
from me, and I must pursue it; and it does not depend in the least upon 
majorities or minorities, but upon justice and righteousness. 

This treaty undertakes to buy the sovereignty over 10,000,000 human 
beings and pay for it in money. I have in my veins the blood of a revered 
ancestor who was one of the five men who presented the immortal Decla- 
ration of Independence to the assembly which adopted it. I will not 
consent to disgrace my lineage by trampling upon it now. I think pea< e 
will come to us sooner if the treaty be rejected than if it be ratified. 
But better years of business depression, better even years of bloodshed, 
than the infamy of such a transaction. 



Address of Mr. Layering, of Massachusetts 135 

You ask me if the question is greater than the people. Your question 
is exactly that which some of our worthy but timi<l business men used to 
put to Charles Sumner before the war. Perhaps you can answer it for 
yourself by first answering the questions — 

Whether righteousness be greater than the people. 

Whether truth be greater than the people. 

Whether justice be greater than the people. 

Whether freedom be greater than the people. 

It is certainly greater than any one party, or any one generation. 

Now, my friend, I would like to ask you t'> consider a question: You 
and I have taken a solemn oath to support the Constitution. The Con- 
stitution provides that no treaty shall be adopted without the approval, 
or, to use the precise phrase of the Constitution, the "advice and con- 
sent of the Senate." In this advice the consent of two-thirds of the 
Senate must concur. Now, do you think that I ought, when considerably 
more than two-thirds of the Senate do not concur, and contrary to my 
sense of what is for the public interest, to vote for the treaty because of 
my party, or because the majority of the people approve it? I do not, in 
fact, believe that a majority of the American people approve it, and I do 
not think that a majority of my own party will a great while. But that 
is not material to this particular question. Am I bound by the Constitu- 
tion and my oath to vote upon the merits of the question as I see it, or 
have I a right, violating my oath and violating the Constitution, to 
surrender my opinion to that of a majority of the party, and act against 
it? When you cast a vote in the House of Representatives under such 
a constraint you will be a very different man from the Mr. Covering I 
have so long known and honored. 

I am, with high regard, faithfully yours, 

Geo. F. Hoar. 

Hon. William C. Lovering. 

This letter is submitted without comment, excepting to sa} - 
that as it gives a true insight into the character of a great 
man it should be published. It is entirely to his credit and 
in keeping with a perfectly consistent life. 

When next Massachusetts shall be asked to place a statue 
of one of her distinguished men in the National Capitol she 
can not pay a higher tribute to herself than by selecting the 
late Senator Hoar for that honor. 



i v Life and Character of George F. Ho 



Address of Mr. Gillett, of Massachusetts 

Mr. Speaker: It was appropriate that the historical ora- 
tion upon the events and achievements of Mr. Hoar's life 
.should have been delivered in the Senate, the scene of his 
most conspicuous public service and the body with which 
his name and fame will ever be associated ; but he was also 
a prominent and useful Member of this House in his earlier 
manhood, and it is appropriate that we, too, should express 
our appreciation and our sorrow, although the superb eulogy 
by Senator Lodge has portrayed his characteristics and achieve- 
ments with a fidelity and beauty and completeness that makes 
further speech superfluous. 

Vet I feel that I must add a word testifying to my per- 
- inal admiration and affection. With us of a younger gen- 
eration his intercourse was so kindly and helpful, he was so 
free from assumption or arrogance, and his conversation was 
always so entertaining and instructive, abounding in remin- 
iscences of great men and great events, that our personal loss 
is irreparable. 

When a great man dies our natural query is, Wherein lay 
his greatness, where was the hiding of his power? I think 
we will all agree that Mr. Hoar's success was no result of 
chance; that it was not any accident that wafted him to 
eminence. In whatever sphere of life he had been born he 
would have made himself a man of mark. He was endowed 
with that restless, questioning, indomitable energy which 
examines and investigates everything, which would be an 
engine powerful enough to drive any man to some success, 
ami which when applied as motive force behind his clear, 



Address of Mr. Gitlett, of Massachusetts 



L o/ 



strong, penetrating intellect propelled it unerringly through 

all obstacles and attained great results. 

The over-modest statement of Daniel Webster that he was 
conscious of no genius except a genius for hard work was 
more ttue of Mr. Hoar. Without great natural endowments 
he could never have won hi-- brilliant triumphs, but he spared 
no toil in arriving at his conclusions or defending them, and 
so in his later years his mind was an arsenal full of rich 
spoils from which he could draw on any occasion. His life 
well illustrates the verse — 

Tile heights by great men reached and kept 

Were not attained by sudden flight, 
But they while their companions slept 

Were t'lilini; upward in the night. 

Every opinion he formed was the result of thorough reflec- 
tion and research. To satisfy his own Yankee inquisitiveness 
he must go to the bottom of every question, and it is charac- 
teristic that he should have said near the close of his life that 
he was ready to debate and defend any position he had ever 
taken with any opponent of sufficient importance. Such thor- 
oughness, combined with such intellectual power, would be- 
sure to make him a leader of men, and so it is natural that we 
find him prominent even in his short service in this House. 

One of his most attractive characteristics was the air of cul- 
ture and scholarship which pervaded all his thought and work. 
We hear much discussion in these days of the value of a col- 
lege education, whether a practical business experience is not 
better, whether the scholar in politics is not a failure. We 
hear the boast for men high in public service that they are net 
pedants or theorists: that they are men of the people, practical 
politicians, good workers if not good speakers, able to accom- 
plish results if not to convince or please an audience. All 



i V s Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

honor to the men who by their own training and force have 
made their way to power. But I do not doubt that a broad 
culture would have made them more useful. Certainly Mr. 
Hoar's career singularly illustrated the assistance education 
may give. His retentive memory held ever at hand stores of 
material on which he could draw not only to illustrate his 
speeches and fill them with classical allusions which so charm 
and stimulate the appreciative hearer, but which also enabled 
him to repel assaults and discomfit opponents. Culture tends, 
perhaps, to make a man more theoretical and less practical, 
because it teaches him to search out fundamental principles 
and base his action not on momentary popularity but eternal 
right. It lifts the compass by which he guides his life out of 
the conflicting currents raging about him into a sereuer and 
clearer atmosphere; but if it makes him at times at odds 
with the world, he is more sure in the long run to lie con- 
sistent, to be right, and to be approved, as was Senator Hoak. 
In the high literary finish which marked his work in the 
Senate Mr. Hoar was but following Massachusetts precedents. 
From the first the men who have represented our State and 
greatly influenced our national history, the men we look back 
upon with pride and gratitude, have exemplified culture as well 
as force. As you look through the long line of distinguished 
men who have established the standard for a Massachusetts 
.Senator, from Adams down through Webster, Choate, and 
Everett and Sumner to Hoar and Lodge, you can but feel a 
thrill of pride in their achievement and recognize admiringly 
not only the native power, but the scholarship, the assiduous 
art and labor, which has made their works American classics; 
and you can but wonder whether the practical statesman of 
to-day, with all his astuteness and skill in producing results, 



Address of Mr. Gillett, of Massachusetts 139 

does not belong to a lesser type and measure up to a lower 
standard than those giants of the past. 

At all events, we can rest assured that Senator Hoar 
felt the inspiration of his great predecessors; that he strove 
nobly on their exalted plane; that he condescended to nothing 
of which they would be ashamed; that he, too, left models of 
clear thought and glowing eloquence, and Massachusetts may 
well feel content that he, her latest son, has kept alive her 
old traditions of power and importance, has held high her old 
standards of character and ability and scholarship and elo- 
quence, and has added another to that long list of illustrious 
statesmen who, by their bearing in the Senate Chamber, have 
brought glory and influence to their proud Commonwealth and 
have affected the current of the nation's history. 



i |.o Life and Character of George F. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Lawrence, of Massachusetts 

Mr. Speaker: Senator Hoak has gone. His great work 
here is finished. With no thought of self lit- gave the best 
that was in him to the State. During a long life there had 
been hut one thought — to serve his country with all his 
strength and with all his ability. His was in very truth a 
consecrated service. And that life of self-sacrifice is appreci- 
ated. With one voice the American people are saying, "Well 
done, good and faithful servant." On every hand there is sin- 
cere expression of a sense of personal loss. Men of every 
political faith are bearing testimony to his great abilities, to 
the purity of his life and the nobility of his character. 

Others have sketched in detail the story of his life. They 
have told of his ancestry; of his boyhood at Concord and his 
life at Harvard; of his success at the bar; of the part he bore 
in the great battle against human slavery; of his service in 
the House of Representatives, and of his great career in the 
Senate. They have spoken of his unselfish and untiring indus- 
try, his profound learning, his eloquence, and his remarkable 
influence in shaping legislation and in the solution of the diffi- 
cult problems which have confronted the American people. 
As I listened to the words of his associates in the Senate I was 
impressed, as all must have been, with their absolute sincerity. 
They loved and respected Senator Hoar because daily service 
with him had shown them that he was always loyal, always 
true to the highest ideals, always striving for the welfare of 
his country. 

He was one of the founders of the Republican party. Ik- 
has said that no political party in history was ever formed for 



Address oj Mr. Lawrence, of Massachusetti \ \\ 

objects so great and noble, and that no political party in 
history was ever so great in its accomplishment for liberty, 
progress, and law. But notwithstanding his loyalty to party 
i a loyalty which lasted until the end i he was true to his own 
convictions of right and wrong, and when he believed his 
party to he wrong opposed it with all his energy and ability. 
Never did he oppose any policy with greater force and 
eloquence than that of his party with reference to the Phil- 
ippine Islands. That in taking this position he was following 
the dictates of his conscience was never questioned by the 
Republicans of Massachusetts. He would not have been the 
Senator whom they trusted so long and implicitly had he ever 
favored a party policy which he believed to be wrong. There 
was no reason to fear that they would desert him for his 
devotion to principle. Genuine and honest independence 
never lost him their support. 

His love of country has been spoken of as a passion, as an 
intense and mastering emotion. Indeed, he once defined love 
of country to be the highest and purest of human affections, 
the master passion of the loftiest natures. A man of intense 
convictions, of undoubted loyalty to his party ami his State, 
his object was ever his whole country. He sought the progress 
and development of every State, and was never moved by petty 
sectionalism. 

This nation is a composite — 

He said- 
It is made up of many streams. The quality, hope, anil destiny of 0U1 
laud are expressed in the phrase of our fathers, E pluribus unuiu — of 
many, one; of many States, one nation; of many races, one people; of 
many creeds, one faith; of many bended knees, one family of God. 

He was very happy in the thought that the bitter feeling 
growing out of the great conflict of the civil war was passing 



\j\2 Life and Character of George /•'. Hoar 

away, that the sections were again being bound together by 
the ties of citizenship. He tried to teach the lesson that the 
North and the South are indispensable to each other; that it is 
only through a genuine and indissoluble union that the United 
States can fulfill its mighty destiny and become a power for 
good among the nations of the earth. He had an abiding faith 
that however separated the States had become by differences 
they would at last surely be drawn together by a common love 
of liberty and a common faith in God. Each passing year is 
proving that such faith was justified. He had a strong sense 
of justice, and did nut permit his own positive convictions to 
blind him to the honest and worthy motives which actuated 
those who differed with him. To be faithful to the truth as he 
saw it was his motive, ami he freely conceded to opponents 
equal honesty of purpose. And from none have come more 
generous words of appreciation and affection for George Fkis- 
bie Hoar than have been spoken by those who fought for the 
lost cause. He is mourned to-day not alone by the people of 
the North. In the eloquent words of Senator Daniel, of 
Virginia, "All the States bow their heads beside his tomb. 
Together they bind their wreaths of honor and affection and 
lay them encircled there." 

A sincere Christian, he loved to teach peace, good will, 
brotherly kindness, and charity to all men. He was one of 
those who are ever striving to bring in the Kingdom of God. 
That the power which created this world of ours is conscious 
and beneficent was to him a supreme certainty, and upon that 
foundation rested his hope of immortality. To his mind things 
about which Christians differ are in the main nonessential. He 
could, therefore, as he said, have "no patience with the spirit 
which would excite religious strife. It is as much out of place 



Address oj Mr. Lawrence^ of Massachusetts [43 

as the witchcraft delusion or the fires of Smithfield." How- 
ever devoted men might be to a sect or denomination, he would 
have them work together in the fellowship of the church 
universal. 

I can not close without referring to his unfailing kindness, 
courtesy, and helpfulness to the younger men who were associ- 
ated with him. To them he was a personal friend, and their 
loss is a personal one. They were always sure of a pleasant 
smile and a kindly greeting from him. An indefatigable 
worker, he was never too busy to aid them in any way that lie 
could, to give them the benefit of his long experience, and to 
help them over the rough places by wise suggestions. His 
counsel was encouraging and inspiring. Companionship with 
him brought good cheer. The world seemed brighter and life 
had more of promise and hope. 

Senator Hoar never sought office. His ambition was to 
continue his successful career at the bar. He loved his home 
and his books and his profession. He preferred the comforts 
and opportunities of private life to any distinction which might 
come from public life. But the people called him, and a 
request from them was a command. His long service involved 
personal sacrifice, but he had an ample and satisfying reward 
in the consciousness of work well done and in the unbounded 
confidence of an appreciative constituency. 

A great man has passed away, but the results of his work 
will live. Memories of him will bring good cheer and encour- 
agement to all who love their country and seek to be of service 
to their fellow-citizens. We should not think of him as dead. 
Indeed — 

There are no dead; we fall asleep, 

To waken where they never weep. 

We close our eyes to pain and sin, 

Our breath ebbs out, but life flows in. 



144 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

Mr. GiLLETT, of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, my colleague, 
Mr. McCall, has been confined to his home by illness for 
several days and has asked me to express to the House his 
extreme regret at not being present to-day to pay his tribute 
to the memory of Senator Hoar, for whom lie cherished a 
deep friendship, admiration, and affection. 



Address of Mr. Thayer, oj Massachusetts i (.5 



Address of Mr. Thayer, of Massachusetts 

Mr Speaker: In the death oi Senator Hoar the nation 
has lost one of its greatest statesmen and Massachusetts one 
of her first citizens. He was spared to a ripe old age, 
retaining his faculties and activities unimpaired till near the 
end. On the 30th day of September, 1904, he passed away 
at his home in Worcester, surrounded by his family and 
friends. He had been in failing health but a short time 
before his death. He remained in attendance upon his duties 
in the Senate until the close of the second session of the 
Fifty-eighth Congress. Reconciled and with serene com- 
posure, awaiting the final dissolution, he became the center 
of a nation's love, and received, as he justly merited, the 
benedictions of a grateful people. With Christian resignation 
he bowed to the divine decree. 

The announcement of his death caused general mourning 
by all the citizens of his beloved State, of all parties, classes, 
and conditions of men. The habiliments of mourning were 
displayed from ever} - home where thoughtful and grateful 
people dwell. Messages of sympathy, condolence, and sorrow 
came from across the continent. 

Few public men were better loved when living, or more 
deeply mourned when dead. Great as he was in life, he is 
surpassing great in death. Time will not allow, upon an 
occasion like this, for one to speak of but a few of the 
marked characteristics of this great and good man, charac- 
teristics and attributes which made him the great exemplar 
S. Doc, 201, 5S-3 10 



146 Life and Character oj George F. Hoar 

to those who come after him — the great national figure he 
was. 

He was faithful to truth as he saw it, to duty as he under- 
stood it, to constitutional liberty as he conceived it. A man 
is great only in comparison with his fellow-men. Measured 
by this standard Senator Hoar holds high station among the 
first men of his age. He exemplified his greatness in his 
devotion and service to the paramount ideals of his manhood; 
he was constant and devoted in his integrity to the principles 
he professed. 

He loved liberty with an intensity shared by few. This 
seemed to be his controlling passion through a long and hon- 
ored life. It compelled him to defend the right of asylum 
for the Chinese upon our soil. He was always solicitous for 
the welfare of our Indian wards. He was the constant cham- 
pion of the cause of the colored race; their sure friend in the 
time of their extremity. His love of liberty for all people 
fitted to secure and enjoy it led him to espouse the cause of 
the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. He repelled the 
suggestion of their being held subjects of an independent 
republic. With his ideas of the eternal fitness of things, he 
could not conceive how a people loving liberty, and securing 
it through blood, carnage, and war, should deny liberty to 
others seeking and demanding it. He had no sympathy with 
the popular acclaim of empire and expansion when the>e were 
to be secured at the cost of liberty. He could not conceive 
how, upon any principle of justice or righteousness, the liberty 
and independence of a people could be bartered away for sor- 
did commercial exploitation. 

When his party denied liberty to their fellow-men and 
strayed from the path of justice and righteousness and aban- 
doned the high ideals for which he believed his party should 



Address of Mr. Thayer, of Massachusetts 147 

stand, he broke away from his fellow-leaders in his party 
and threw himself into the breach, battling valiantly and 
ably for the rights and liberties of the Philippine people. It 
must have been a great trial and disappointment for him, 
the long-trusted leader of his party, to part company with 
his associates of a lifetime, his friends, and his Administra- 
tion. But he heard the call to duty and the cry of the 
oppressed, the entreaties and prayers of a people seeking 
liberty. He could not turn a deaf ear to their supplications. 
His history and the history of his beloved country were 
behind him. He never had faltered under like conditions; 
he could not now. There was no doubt or uncertainty cloud- 
ing his vision. He needed no time for reflection or decision. 
His course of action was as clear to him as the noonday 
sun. He never did and could not now compromise with dis- 
honor and injustice. And when the future historian, removed 
from the strife, the clamor, and the prejudice of the present, 
impartially writes the history of this period, it will be made 
to appear that the position taken upon the Philippine ques- 
tion by Senator Hoar was the just, patriotic, and correct 
one, and the honor his name will then secure will more than 
compensate for the great sacrifices he made, for all he 
suffered and endured for conscience sake; and it should never 
be forgotten that in his course on the Philippine question 
he followed not only the dictates of his conscience and his 
mature and wise judgment, but he departed not from the 
path that Phillips, Sumner, and Lincoln trod. 

In the great debates which attended the Administration 
policy toward the Philippines, which policy Senator Hoar 
constantly criticised and denounced, there was no more potent 
factor, no more popular acclaim, than was found in the 
sentiment contained in the phrase, "Who will haul down 



148 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

the flag?" I have yet to learn of a clearer or more correct 
exposition and complete answer to that inquiry than is con- 
tained in the language of Senator Hoar in his great speech 
on April 17, 1900, when he said: 

Certainly the flag should never be lowered from any moral field over 
which it has once waved. To follow the flag is to follow the principles of 
freedom and humanity for which 11 stands. To claim that we must follow 
it when it stands for injustice or oppression is like claiming that we must 
take the nostrums of the quack doctor who stamps it on his wares, or fol- 
low every scheme of wickedness or fraud, if only the flag be put at the 
head of the prospectus. 

No one loved the flag and what it stands for more than did 
Senator Hoar, and few men have stated mure correctly when 
and where it should be supported and defended than did he 
in the language above quoted. 

Senator Hoar was not permitted to live long enough to 
see his great efforts, the greatest of his later life, in behalf 
of the Philippine people crowned with success and the results 
and accomplishments they so richly deserved, noi to witness 
wdiat the outcome and lasting effect of the policy of his party, 
which he opposed, toward the Philippines is really to he. 

To his loved land lie g ive, without a stain, 

Courage anil faith, vain faith, ami courage vain. 

He, subtile, strong, and stubborn, gave his life 
To a lost cause, ami knew the gift was vain. 

Later shall rise a people sane and great, 

Forged in strong fires, by equal war made one, 

Telling old battles over without hate, 

Noble, his name shall jiass from sire to son. 

Senator HoAr died, as he Lived, in the firm conviction 
that the jxjlicy he advocated toward the Philippines was 
the correct and true policy, and that the policy which the 
Administration of his own party had adopted would in the 
end prove dangerous and subversive to the best interests 
and good name of the American people. 



Address of Mr. Thayer, of Massachusetts i.p ( 

He felt that the die was cast and that nothing but the 
sobering influences of time and effect could eradicate the 
error and right the wrong; and in the closing sentences 
of his great speech of April 17 he accepts the inevitable, 
recanting nothing and reaffirming all that he had said and 
dune in the cause of liberty, humanity, and righteousness. 
These are his last parting words to his associates and the 
American people on this subject: 

I know In i\v feeble is a single voice :miiil this din and tempest, this 
delirium of empire. It may be that the battle for this day is lust, but I 
have an assured faith in the future. I have an assured faith in justice 
and the love. of liberty of the American people. The stars in their courses 
fight for freedom. The Ruler of the heavens is on that side. If the 
battle to-, lay go against it, I appeal to another day, not distant ami sure to 
come. I appeal from the clapping of hands and the stamping of feet and 
the brawling ami shouting to the quiet chamber where the father- gath- 
ered in Philadelphia. I appeal from the empire to the Republic. I 
appeal from the millionaire and the boss and the wire-puller and the 
manager to the statesman of the elder time, in whose eyes a guinea never 
glistened, who lived and died poor, and who left to his children and his 
countrymen a good name, far better than riches. I appeal from the 
present, bloated with material prosperity, drunk with the lust of empire, 
to another and a better age. I appeal from the present to the future and 
to the past. 

Senator Hoar had the courage of his convictions in a pre- 
eminent degree. I know of no man in modern times who 
excelled him in courage to declare his convictions in civil and 
political matters and to accept the consequences. He seemed 
to he perfectly oblivious to the injurious effect any declara- 
tion of his might have upon himself, politically or otherwise. 
When others, through discretion or temerity, halted, he boldly 
stepped to the front and led the charge, regardless of how the 
result of the contest might affect himself. One noted example 
of this is found in his argument before the Senate in the 
Belknap impeachment trial, and I reproduce it here as charac- 
teristic of him during his whole political career. I believe that 



150 Life and Character oj George F. Hoar 

few men just entering, as he was, upon their political careers 
would have had the courage, had they been possessed of the 
information and occupying the position he did, to arraign his 
party associates and men in official positions as he did upon 
that occasion. 

Hear his masterly denunciation of corruption in high 
places and bribery in office: 

My own public life has been a very brief and insignificant one, extend- 
in- a little beyond the duration of a single term of Senatorial office; but 
in that brief period I have seen five judges of a high court of the United 
States driven from office by threats of impeachment for maladtninistratii in. 
I have heard the taunt from the friendliest lips that when the United States 
presented herself in the East to take part with the civilized world in gen- 
erous competition in the arts of life the only product of her institutions in 
which she surpassed all others beyond question was her corruption. I 
have seen, in the State of the Union foremost in power and wealth, four 
judges of her courts impeached for corruption and the political adminis- 
tration of her chief city become a disgrace and a byword throughout the 
world. I have seen the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in 
the House, now a distinguished member of this court, rise in his place 
and demand the expulsion of four of his associates for making sale of 
their official privilege of selecting the youths to be educated at our great 
military school. When the greatest railroad in the world, binding 
together the continent and uniting two great seas which wash our shores, 
was finished, I have seen our national triumph and exultation turned to 
bitterness and shame by the unanimous reports of three committees of 
Congress — two of the House and one here — that every step of that mighty 
enterprise was taken in fraud. I have heard in highest places the shame- 
less doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office that the true way 
by which power should be gained in the Republic is to bribe the people 
with the offices created for their service, and the true end for which it 
should be used when gained is the promotion of selfish ambition and the 
gratification of personal revenge. I have heard that suspicion haunts the 
footsteps of the trusted companions of the President. 



Address oj Mr. Sullivan, of Massachusetts 



Address of Mr. Sullivan, of Massachusetts 

Mr. Speaker: The eulogies of George Frisbie Hoar con- 
tain such an able and exhaustive discussion of his life and his 
services to our country that additional addresses must seem 
like supererogation. 

I rise simply in appreciation of the value of his work, not 
only to the country, but to our public men. For his life is 
full of lessons, which if pondered will surely raise the ideals of 
our public officials. 

He died, after a life of nearly fourscore years, full of honors, 
but with little of this world's riches. Public service of nearly 
half a century had left him a comparatively poor man. But 
he carried to his grave — and it will last while men have mem- 
ory — that which is better than riches, the undying love of the 
people of the United States for his lifelong battle against every 
form of corruption that threatened the purity of our public 
service and the permanence of our institutions. It is pleasant 
indeed to see that though in his lifetime, when moved by 
righteous indignation, he dealt powerful blows to that system 
which was subversive of human liberty, to-day the voice of 
the South is raised to pay tribute to the great man whom once 
they did not understand, but whom they learned to love. 

He was a constant foe to every form of race hatred and 
religious intolerence. An American of Americans himself, he 
refused to stand with those who would shut the nation's doors 
against the poor and the oppressed of the world, for his broad 
mind would not permit him to regard one set of God's 
creatures as so inferior to ourselves that we should deny them 



152 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

the opportunity to breathe with us His air and enjoy with us 
His sunshine. 

Though a Protestant whose faith was strong and uncompro- 
mising, he saw the seas of Know-Nothingism and A. P. A. -ism 
sweep over our country, carrying with them a flood of bitter 
animosities, hateful discriminations, and foul wrongs, and 
he manfully withstood the current, buffeting its waves with 
tlie same vigor with which he would have repelled an attack 
upon tlie religion of his fathers. He lived to see the men 
whom he defended against the first of these prescriptive 
movements march with those of his own race and faith to 
battle for the preservation of the Union when its integrity 
was menaced. He saw them settle down to the pursuits of 
peace, saw them helping in every field of industry to build up 
the country's greatness, saw them educate their children to 
love the flag their fathers had fought to defend, and saw them 
again attacked by a new set of religious bigots marshaled 
under the old banner of hate, though under a new name. 
Then again, aided by the prestige of long ami faithful service 
to his country, he struck down with a single blow the enemies 
of fraternal love and religious freedom, and the hearts of 
millions swelled with gratefulness, while a prayer to God to 
bless George Frisbie Hoar rose to every Catholic's lips. 

Through all the stormy conflicts between religion and 
science, during which many of the brightest minds were 
attracted by the philosophy of atheism and agnosticism, he 
preserved in its integrity his religious faith even to the end 
of life. Would that his example might lend inspiration to 
the wavering to cling to their faith in a Supreme Being 
through all the vicissitudes of existence! 

That love of liberty and equality which made him one of 
the great forces that ultimately freed the slave could not fail 



Address <•/ Mr. Sullivan, of Massachusetts 153 

to compel him to raise his voice against the stifling of the 
aspirations for freedom of the people of the Philippine 
Islands. Stronger than all constitutional questions that were 
urged, mightier than all economic objections which were 
raised, was his hatred of a system that was built upon the 
theory of the inequality of men. He had witnessed the 
cause of human liberty triumph often in foreign lands over 
the forces of despotism, he had witnessed the shackles fall 
from millions in his own land, and having an abiding faith 
in the justness of his countrymen, he could not be brought 
to believe that they would sanction the government of an 
alien people against their will until the tyranny, as it seemed 
to him, was actually accomplished. His passionate appeal to 
his party to let these people govern themselves in their own 
way was but the voice of his ancestry that had defied the 
might of kings when it usurped the rights of men. 

And now this man has passed out of our vision, lint not 
out of our memory. He will be remembered as a great man, 
but, what is better, he will be loved as a good man. When 
the deeds of men the glitter of whose lives was as the cold 
brilliancy of the diamond are forgotten, the life of George 
Frisbie Hoar will be recalled as one that shone like the 
blood-red ruby, combining the warmth of a grand soul with 
the effulgence of a great mind. 



154 Life a '"l Character of George F. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Greene, of Massachusetts 

Mr. Speaker: I accept the duty which devolves upon me 
as representing in part the great Commonwealth of Massachu- 
setts in paying tribute to the memory of the late Senator 
George Frisbie Hoar, realizing my inability adequately to 
express the just appreciation with which the constituents I 
have the honor especially to represent held this most mar- 
velous and distinguished man during his long and eminently 
successful life. 

The city in which I have lived from my youth — the city 
of Fall River — is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the 
country, having within its limits possibly every nationality on 
the face of the earth, more than So per cent of its popula- 
tion being of foreign birth or being by direct descent from 
those born on foreign soil. His tender sympathy with the 
oppressed and the downtrodden, his courage and fortitude in 
defending freedom of thought and freedom of action in Doth 
religious and secular affairs, found a ready response among 
a people who had emigrated from other lands to seek an 
asylum where the rights of men would be respected and 
the privileges of religious freedom would be guaranteed. 

To them Senator Hoak represented the highest type of 
American citizenship, and the people of that community 
rejoiced whenever he came among them. They read with 
satisfaction his vigorous criticisms of those who tried to 
confine him within the narrow limits of religious prejudice 
in determining the worth or qualification for public service 
of his fellow-men. 



Address of Mr. Greene, of Massachusetts i.s.s 

My earliest recollectioi^ of liini began with the agitation 
for the destruction of the great curse of human slavery. 
The arrest of Anthony Burns and his return by the Com- 
monwealth in obedience to law as an escaped fugitive slave 
awakened the conscience and determination of the people of 
Massachusetts to prevent future repetitions of this appalling 
and unwelcome exhibition of holding human beings in per- 
petual bondage. 

Senator Hoar never faltered in his belief that slavery was 
wrong, and, regardless of political associations which had 
endeared him to his friends and made him prominent in the 
political councils of the Whig party, he forsook them all and 
became one of the most prominent leaders in the Free Soil 
party, a party which had for its avowed purpose the destruc- 
tion of human slavery as a blot and curse long endured by 
a people who had endeavored to found a nation devoted to 
the principles of human freedom and the maintenance of 
equality and human rights. 

The revelations of history of the last half century demon- 
strate beyond dispute that had his preeminent abilities been 
devoted to the pursuit of wealth or of distinction in the line 
of his chosen profession he would have ranked among the 
greatest of his time and generation, and have been showered 
with abundant remuneration as a reward for the service 
which his natural abilities, retentive memory, and legal 
training would have enabled him to render to the individuals 
and corporations who would have been gratified to have 
commanded his services. 

He turned from the great opportunities which were within 
his grasp and yielded to the demand of his countrymen that 
he should engage in the conflicts and accept the sacrifices 
which a public career exacts from a faithful public servant. 



156 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

He tried to retire from the public service and take up the 
duties of his chosen profession, for he was a lover of books 
and an earnest student of literature. The harder problems 
involved in legal procedure only awakened within him greater 
zeal and determination successfully to solve them, thereby 
achieving the distinction and rewards which a successful and 
honored legal career would certainly have afforded him. 

But as he retired from one degree of the public service he 
was called to other and higher distinctions. 

My personal acquaintance with Mr. Hoar began in the 
year [876. That year, as chairman of the Republican city 
committee of Fall River, I received him as the opening 
speaker of that eventful political campaign. The gentleman 
who presided on that occasion was the Hon. Robert T. Davis, 
who still survives, one of my predecessors in the House "I 
Representatives and one of the pioneers of the antislavery 
movement and a lifelong friend and active coworker with 
Senator Hoar, although three years his senior. They were 
both members of the constitutional convention of Massachu- 
setts. I seldom met the Senator in after life that he did not 
refer to their association and friendship and their compan- 
ionship in Congress. In his address in my home city I was 
charmed by the eloquence and logic of Mr. Hoar, and ever 
afterwards followed his public career with keener appreciation 
ami interest. 

The result of the election of 1S76 was a matter of doubt for 
many months, and there was finally evolved a scheme of .settle- 
ment which resulted in the establishment of an Electoral Com- 
mission, which by act of the Congress was empowered to 
determine all questions of controversy arising from said 
election. Senator Hoar was appointed by the Speaker 
of the House a member of the Electoral Commission, and 



Address of Mr. Greene, of Massachusetts [57 

contributed by his ability and conservatism to the peaceful and 
orderly determination of what seemed to many anxious and 
patriotic citizens one of the most alarming periods of the 
nation's history. 

It is not necessary that I should recount his eminent service- 
in this body. Let the student of history examine the record 
of his acts, his eminent wisdom, and his expressions upon 
many of the important questions which demanded solution in 
that period of the nation's life so closely following the civil war, 
and he will find abundant evidence of his marked ability and 
industry. 

In the year 1880 I was selected an alternate delegate to the 
Republican national convention which resulted in the nomina- 
tion of President Garfield. I was granted the privilege of 
meeting with the Massachusetts delegation in all its delibera- 
tions. Senator Hoar was chairman of the State delegation, 
and also was chosen temporary chairman of the convention. 
In all the stormy conflicts which the contests between the 
great leaders of the parts seeking for supremacy aroused, 
Senator Hoar remained calm and undisturbed. The late 
James A. Garfield, the nominee of the convention, then United 
States Senator, and late .Senators Roscoe Conkling ami John A. 
Logan, and ex-Senator William E. Chandler, ami the present 
Senators William P. Frye, Eugene Hale, Chauncey M. Depew, 
Julius C. Burrows, William B. Allison, Shelby M. Cullom, and 
Henry Cabot Lodge, and Chester A. Arthur, the nominee of 
the convention for Vice-President, and others prominent in 
party councils, were participants in the work of that conven- 
tion. Between the friends of the two principal candidates. 
General Grant and Senator Blaine, there was a great struggle 
to secure the permanent chairmanship of the convention, and 
finally the differences were adjusted b\ the unanimous request 



1 5 s Life ami Character of George /•'. Hoar 

that Senator Hoar should occupy the position, and lie became 
the permanent presiding officer. Mis work, though extremely 
difficult, met the approval of the entire assemblage. 

At the meetings of the State delegation his counsel and 
direction were of the highest order. He was so highly 
regarded as a safe and judicious leader by the Republican 
party as a whole throughout the State that he was always 
a prominent figure in their campaigns, and he presided at 
the State conventions in 1871, 1877, 1882, and 1885, and 
was a delegate at large to the national conventions of 1876, 
[880, 1S84, and 1888. 

His greatest field of activity, however, was in the United 
States Senate. He was a member of that distinguished body 
for more than twenty-seven years. The tributes of his 
associates are the greatest that could possibly be awarded a 
human being. Estimated in comparison with the reward 
and triumphs of a private career, the latter would not be 
entitled to consideration. Senators intimately associated with 
him in his political career, and in sympathy with his. extremes! 
partisan political opinions, could not speak of him more kindly 
and generously than did those who had been his most bitter 
political enemies. These tributes of Senators from all parts of 
the Union show how completely his public career had become 
interwoven into the entire fabric of the nation's life. He 
became known to the aspiring youth, and his history seemed 
familiar to the hoary pilgrim traveling along life's pathway. 

Future generations will ponder over his career, and be 
better able to solve the problems with which they may be 
confronted by contemplating the struggles through which he 
passed and recognizing the ureal accomplishments which his 
industry and fidelity had been the means of achieving toward 
the upbuilding and perpetuating of the life of the nation. 



Address of Mr. Greene^ of Massachusetts 159 

In the intimacy of private conversation and association 
the extent of his knowledge of the country's progress and 
development and his familiarity with the work of the earlier 
figures in national history were made both apparent and 
interesting. I especially remember on one occasion, when 
journeying with him from Washington toward his home, he 
referred to the marked change in the requirements of com- 
munities from the public servants at that time over the 
requisites during his student life at Harvard College. He 
said that the late Rufus Choate was announced to deliver a 
political address in Roxbury, a suburb of Boston, and he, 
with a number of his fellow-students, attended the meeting. 
Mr. Choate had a carefully prepared address which he had 
committed to memory and delivered it to the entire satisfac- 
tion of his auditors. 

A few nights afterwards Mr. Choate was announced to speak 
in South Boston, and, with his fellow-students, Mr. Hoar 
attended the meeting, and the same identical speech was deliv- 
ered. Several of the students laughed rather immoderately. 

Again, a few nights later, Mr. Choate was announced to 
speak in Cambridge, and Mr. Hoar, with his fellow-students, 
were again among his auditors, and they were regaled again 
with precisely the same address. Mr. Hoar said that some of 
the students rudely "guffawed." 

At that time, he said, there were no shorthand reporters, nor 
was it customary to publish reports of speeches, the usual 
method being to publish an item stating that the Hon. Rufus 
Choate had addressed an interested audience upon the issues 
of the day, while at the present day it is customary for news- 
papers in many instances to publish remarks of public speakers 
in full, making it incumbent upon them to make extended 
research and provide very largely new and original matter for 



[6o Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

each public address. This, he said, became an exaction which 
taxed the abilities of public servants of the present day to an 
extent which possibly the individual citizen hardly realized. 

Senator Hoar was one of the early founders of the Repub- 
lican party. His wisdom was displayed very largely in fram- 
ing the national and State platforms in critical periods of the 
nation's history. 

It was my g 1 fortune frequently to serve with him upon 

the committee on resolutions at State conventions. The abil- 
ity displayed by him in rapidly characterizing in vigorous and 
terse language the consensus of opinion of the assembled com- 
mittee was marvelous to contemplate. He seemed to have the 
proper expression to compass the desired result always at his 
command. The Republicans of Massachusetts always felt that 
they owed him a debt of gratitude which the}- never could 
repay except by awarding to him their highest honor, and 
there was no division of sentiment in renewing his commission 
as United States Senator, and his greatest honor was that the 
party and the people called him to its service in that distin- 
guished body for the longest period ever granted to any one of 
it-, citizens during the life of the Commonwealth. 

Having been called upon at the time of his decease for a 
brief expression regarding his life and service, I used the fol- 
lowing language, which I quote in closing the limited address 
which this occasion has called forth: 

By tlie death of Senator Hoar the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
and the nation have been sadly bereaved, Possibly no man in public life 
touched the hearts and lives .,f the people of the entire country so inti- 
mately as he. 

His great works and public acts are interwoven into the nation's histo: v 

for more than the last half century, and his remarkable record of public 

ci will become an inspiration to the youths of to-, lay and to future 

generations, awakening them to higher and holier conceptions of theii 

duties to their country and to their fellow-men. 



Address of Mr. Greene, of Massachusetts c6i 

Others have eulogized him with words of power and elo- 
quence, but words fail adequately to express the sorrow and 
afflietion which the State ami the nation suffer in the removal 
of this great man from the activities of social and political 
life. The world has been enriched and humanity has been 
ennobled because he lived and wrought among us. 

He was a politician in the highest sense, fearless and inde- 
pendent; keen and sharp in his criticisms, but kind in ever} 
act and thought. He sacrificed his life and abilities for the 
public good, thereby exemplifying the highest type of enlight- 
ened Christian citizenship. His words and accomplishments 
will be preserved and regarded by his fellow-countrymen as 
among the brightest and noblest pages of our country's 
history during the last half century. 

It was my privilege to meet him frequently during the 
sessions of Congress. His companionship seemed almost a 
benediction. He was always cheerful and interesting, with 
a remarkable memory of events and of many of the best 
historical and literary productions. 

I was assigned as a member of the committee from this 
body to attend his funeral at the city of Worcester, where 
he resided at the time of his decease. Business was entirely 
suspended, and as far as possible the entire populace viewed 
his remains while lying in state at the city hall. 

The following da} r his body was deposited in the burial 
ground of his birthplace, in the historic town of Concord, 
Mass., there to remain among those of his ancestors who 
were the earlier settlers of the Commonwealth and partici- 
pants in the preliminary struggle of the Revolutionary war 
at Concord Bridge. 

I gladly add my tribute to the memory of the distinguished 
scholar, statesman, and patriot, the late Senator Hoar. 
S. Doc. 201, 5S-3 II 



162 Life and Character oj George F. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Tirrell, of Massachusetts 

Mr. Speaker: George Frisbie Hoar was born at Con- 
cord, Mass., August 29, 1826. He died September 30, 1904. 
He sleeps in his native town again — that sleep that knows no 
waking until the firmament shall be rolled together like a 
scroll. As this town is in the district I have the honor to 
represent, it is both a duty and a pleasure to pay a tribute 
to his memory. Environment had much to do with molding 
his character. His courage, his persistency, his ambition, his 
patriotism drew their inspiration from the hills, the valleys, 
the men, and the history of his native town. 

Hereditary greatness descended to him to a remarkable 
degree through many generations. His family is one of the 
few exceptions — so few you can almost count them upon your 
fingers — of inherited genius. His genealogy is a history of 
leaders from the early colonial days. They fled from England 
when the tyranny of the Stuarts rendered impossible the free 
exercise of religious and political belief. They are conspicuous 
in the just administration of law for the Indian as well as for 
the white inhabitant. They were of the immortal band who 
fought at Concord and Lexington. They were numbered 
among those who formulated the Constitution. They defended 
the negro when ostracism and obloquy were the reward. They 
severed party connections and cooperated in the organization 
of a new party allegiance when conscience no longer permitted 
their adherence to the dominant political creeds. They have 
been conspicuous within our memory for their virile intellects, 
their ripe learning, and their widespread political influence 



Address of Mr. Ttrrell, of Massachusetts 163 

throughout the country. All this is well known, but the 
subtle influence which made the character of Senator Hoar, 
even in his early days, from the air he breathed, the fields he 
roamed, and the men and the institutions they had created , 
through two hundred years of strenuous effort, has been but 
slightly touched upon. To that I call attention now. 

Concord was among the first settlements of the Massachusetts 
Province. Agriculture was the industry of the people. The 
broad meadows and uplands by the Concord River attracted the 
emigrant. It was a frontier town. It was settled by Puritans. 
A theocratic community was organized. The church was the 
state. The Bible was the rule of faith and action. The minis- 
ter was the leader of the flock. But while his superior educa- 
tion and godly character made him as one apart, his people 
followed him only so far as their own interpretation of the 
Scriptures convinced their conscience that he properly inter- 
preted the Inspired Word. It is true, dissenters found no 
countenance among them. A deviation from established dog- 
mas banished them from the colony. They saw no other way 
of worshiping God in peace. Now, strange as it may appear, 
this independence of interpretation of Sacred Writ, and the 
injunction upon all to study it and follow it according to their 
conscience, led to a curious result. To this result the Hoar 
family contributed as active participants in colonial and religious 
affairs. It explains the anomaly of George Frisbie Hoar 
a> 1 tvpe of what might lie denominated a modernized Puritan 
of the nineteenth century. He was their eulogist, as appears 
in many a masterly address. He had the characteristics him- 
self of those worthies whom he extolled. At the same time he 
was the antithesis of the Puritan in his tastes, his religious 
affiliation, and his broad, unsectariau views. This apparent 
contradiction is inexplicable until the development of the New 



164 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

England town is studied and the threads of its religious life are 
gathered together. 

Take a tour through the old colonial towns near Concord. 
In all of them, in some central location, generally by the town 
common which in those days surrounded the church, a white 
spire ornamenting the must conspicuous church of the village, 
some of them illustrative of the best architecture of a hundred 
years ago, will meet your view. It is the church, the old church 
of the town. It is of the Unitarian faith which he espoused. 
It is the revolt of the independent. God-fearing, truth-seeking 
Puritan, who in the progress of generations worked his way 
through narrowness and bigotry to a broad conception of the 
relations between Cod and man, so that in the Puritan district 
of Massachusetts to-day there is a more liberal, independent, 
and conscientious religious opinion than in almost any other 
section of the country. The Puritan reaction swung far. far- 
ther than some of us can follow, but it evolved a manhood 
which in philosophy, statesmanship, and literature has not had 
its equal in the history of the American nation. Senator Hoar 
was a type of the best product of that evolution. 

We know through his autobiography it was not his intention 
to enter public life. His brief service in the Massachusetts 
house of representatives and senate was not specially attractive 
to him. His success at the bar was so quickly and easily won 
that he expected and was satisfied with its honors and emolu- 
ments. It absorbed his time and attention. It was only great 
occasions, then, which brought him into public notice. The 
analytical cast of his mind, his logical powers, his command of 
precedent, his grasp of principles, and his ability to marshal 
facts made him a formidable antagonist in the great causes in 
which he was engaged. It was not through his seeking that 
at 43 vears of age he again entered political life. For eight 



Address of Mr. Tirrell, of Massachusetts 165 

years he represented his district in Congress; for twenty-seven 
years thereafter he was in the Senate of the United States. 
Thus for thirty-five consecutive years, and until his death, he 
was in the public service. 

I can think of no better illustration of the basis of his polit- 
ical action throughout this period than by a remark he uttered 
at a centennial address to which I listened a few years ago. 
He traced the history of the old town from its early settlement, 
bringing, as was his wont, the worthies of the early days 
before us. He told us what they had done to fashion and 
upbuild the nation, and emphasized the underlying thought of 
his discourse that their record showed and history proved that 
righteousness alone could save the nation. Temporary expe- 
dients would fail. Policy would be ineffective. Injustice 
would 'defeat its own ends. Equal rights, equal laws, equal 
privileges, for rich and poor, high and low — these were the 
prerogatives of all. 

How he illustrated this in his long career! He never truckled 
to public opinion. He was the most independent partisan of 
our generation. He was at times at variance with his party on 
vital issues, yet held unshaken its loyalty and support. He 
was unanimously reelected when he dissented from the almost 
unanimous attitude of his party on a party issue. The position 
was unique and puzzling if you did not kuow the man. It was 
because he was honest, fearless, conscientious, and righteous in 
his motives and actions. It was because we knew he could not 
be otherwise and just to himself. It was because his life, as an 
open book, was before us, and we believed that the tortures of 
the Inquisition, aye, the martyr's fate, could not turn that 
righteous soul. So he won our respect, admiration, and love- 
in his public career as one removed from the limitations of the 



1 66 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

politician, and from whom it was not necessary to seek an 
explanation. 

Of course, these were but incidents in a long and illustrious 
career. Even he could not have retained part)' support unless 
he essentially represented his party's principles. He was an 
ardent advocate and supporter of Republican tenets, and in 
great crises in his party's history one of its most prominent 
defenders. I remember once at a State convention in Mas- 
sachusetts he was called upon unexpectedly to address the 
delegates. For half an hour he held them enthralled as he 
rehearsed his party's history. It was the most remarkable 
exhibition of extemporaneous eloquence I ever listened to, 
not even Phillips or Burlingame or Andrew or Sumner, as I 
have heard them, equaling that effort. 

He had a felicitous choice of words, a loftiness of thought, 
an aptness of quotation, a grasp of historical detail, a famil- 
iarity with the best literature, and a knowledge of the great 
men and deeds of all ages, so that his address, while ornate 
at times, was so elevating in character, so choice in expression, 
so abounding in illustration drawn from an unerring memory, 
that to hear him at his best was part of a liberal education. 
He had a memory that never failed him in oration or debate. 
In the campaign of 1900 he opened the canvass in his native 
town. I sat upon the platform by his side. He held a huge 
pile of manuscript in his hand containing a speech it was his 
purpose to deliver. He told me it was his custon to write out 
and read his first address and afterwards to speak extempo- 
raneously. I remarked that I enjoyed his extemporaneous 
addresses best. Whether it was my remark or not I can 
not say, but when it came his turn he placed the manuscript 
upon the desk and for an hour and a half, without turning a 
leaf or referring to the manuscript, addressed the audience. 



Ac/dress of Mr. Tirrell, of Massachusetts [67 

The next morning the manuscript copy appeared in the daily 
papers, and in sequence, thought, argument, reference, and 
words it appeared to be identical with the one delivered. It 
seemed to me at the time an astonishing feat of memory. 
His scholarship, memory, industry, and natural gifts made 
him a leader in great events in his public career. 

He was one of the managers in the impeachment case of 
1876. He was one of the Electoral Commission of 1 s 7 7 . He 
was a constructive statesman, as the tenure-of-office act, the 
Presidential-succession law, the bankruptcy law, and the anti- 
trust enactments attest. He was an indefatigable worker. 
One watching him in the Senate might think him idly passing 
away the hour. He was watching and listening. He seemed 
indifferent to what was going on. But let an error in argu- 
ment be made or a misstatement of fact asserted, or, to him, 
false conclusions drawn in the course of that debate, and 
instantly his voice would ring throughout the Chamber. 
Some might say there was a brusqueness in his manner. His 
voice was not melodious and honeyed words were not natural 
to him. He was too sincere to touch even the hem of a 
hypocrite's garment. He said what he meant, though not 
intentionally would he wound a friend. He wanted friendship 
and sympathy, but not if thereby there was to be a sacrifice of 
principle. If he believed a man to be a demagogue or dis- 
honest he was unrelenting in his opposition and vitriolic in his 
wrath. He did not want his friendship. He courted his 
opposition. But for all others was the outstretched hand and 
kindly heart. He had the sympathy of a great man, ready to 
aid, when practicable, in trivial as well as important matters. 

When the light of such a name goes out the shadows for a 
while appear to gather. But not for long, for his work 
remaineth in imperishable record in the history of his State 



i68 Life and Character oj George F. Hoar 

and country. He rests in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, in Con- 
curd. Near him is the grave of Emerson, the first of American 
philosophers, the seer of the idealism of American youth. 
There is also Thoreau, whose spirit yet seems haunting the 
hills and valleys of Sleepy Hollow or along the shores of Lake 
Waldon, not far away. There also is Alcott, the American 
teacher, and his family, so widely known. There also, only a 
few feet away, lies the greatest of American romancers, who 
in the little room at the old Salem custom-house penned the 
Scarlet Letter, whose conclusion is indeed the life lesson of him 
of whom we speak, wherein Hawthorne says that he has failed 
in his purpose unless he has shown in this work he had created 
that in living and dying we must Be True, Be True. 



Address of Mr. Clark, oj Missouri •■•■ 



Address of Mr. Clark, of Missouri 

Mr. Speaker: That Senator George Frisbie Hoak will 
hold a high place and fill a large space in the annals of his time 
goes without saying. Of Revolutionary stuck, a descendant of 
Roger Sherman, he was American to his heart's core, and he 
devoted his life to the service of the Republic, which rewarded 
him with her affection, her confidence, and her admiration. 
His lines were cast in pleasant places and in a history-making 
epoch. Though sometimes he was viciously assailed, at others 
he ran the risk of having applied to him the Scriptural injunc- 
tion, "Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you," 
and at last, having almost reached the Psalmist's extreme 
allotment of fourscore years, he had that — 

Which should accompany old age, 

As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends. 

Pleasant as it would be to me to enter into the details of his 
life, character, and labor, that delightful task must be left to 
others closer to him and more familiar with those facts which 
constitute the essentials of biography; but the invitation to 
speak here and now has suggested to my mind a few thoughts 
which may or may not be of interest to those who hear and 
read what is uttered on this occasion. 

Job exclaimed: "Oh, that mine adversary had written a 
book!" From that day to this when a man has taken his pen 
in hand to write a book it has been assumed that he also took 
his reputation, if not his life, in his hand; but the fact that 
what the man of Uz considered an extrahazardous performance 
is not necessarily fatal to the performer is demonstrated by the 



17" Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

event of the November election, when Col. Theodore Roose- 
velt, who has written many books, in which he expressed his 
opinions of persons and things with startling freedom, not to 
say abandon, was chosen President of this puissant Republic by 
an overwhelming majority. This seems to signify that the 
American people admire candid and courageous speaking — even 
in a hook. 

However that may be, I rejoice and hail it as a healthy sign 
of the times that our public men are more and more growing 
into the habit of writing, in the evening of their lives, books of 
a mule or less reminiscent nature, recording from their stand- 
point their views of the transactions which they witnessed and 
part of which they were. What they say in that regard may 
be taken and accepted as part of the res gestae. 

Caesar owes as much of his fame to his Commentaries as to 
his victories. The fruits of his conquests have long since per- 
ished. The mighty empire which he founded has crumbled 
into dust. Happily for mankind, the system of government 
for which his name has become the synonym is in process of 
ultimate extinction; hut by his Commentaries he has helped to 
form the minds of the youths of every civilized country under 
heaven, through twenty centuries of man's most interesting 
history and most stupendous endeavor. So long as education 
is valued Caesar will exercise imperial sway over the human 
mind, not by the power of his invincible sword, which is rust, 
but by his cunning with the pen. Fighting was the serious 
business of his life. The preparation of his Commentaries 
was merely a mental recreation in his tent at eventide, amid 
the clatter of camps and the clangor of arms. Had he 
been catechised as to his deeds on which would be builded the 
towering fabric of his fame, he most probably would not have 
enumerated his Commentaries as even the smallest and hum- 



Address of Mr. Clark, of Afissouri 171 

blest of them, but they constitute his clearest, strongest, and 
most enduring title to the favorable consideration of mankind. 
Napoleon, the most astounding son of Mars, with clearer 
vision and a wiser judgment as to the relative value of human 
achievements, proudly declared that he would descend to pos 
terity with his Code in his hand, a prophecy which has been 
amply verified. The crimson glories of Montenotte, Locli, 
Areola, Marengo, the Pyramids, Austerlitz, Ulm, Jena, and 
Wagram were dimmed by Leipzig, Waterloo, and the dismal 
journey to St. Helena; the thrones which he ravished from 
hostile kings and bestowed upon his brothers, sisters, and 
stable boys passed again to his royal enemies whom he had 
despoiled; the imperial crown, bought with so much blood 
and so much crime for his son, never encircled the brow of 
that pathetic child of misfortune; but the laws created by the 
fiat of the Corsican Colossus influence and bless the lives of 
75,000,000 people, because they were grounded in justice and 
in wisdom. His career illustrates and enforces the truth con- 
tained in Bulwer-Lytton's famous lines: 

Beneath the rule of men entirely great 
The pen is mightier than the sword. 

Others have marched as strenuously and fought as bravely 
as Xenophon and his ten thousand, only to vanish into 
oblivion; but he and his band are among the immortals 
because he wrote the Anabasis, which has delighted and 
instructed millions of ambitious boys and which will delight 
and instruct succeeding millions till the earth shall perish 
with fervent heat. 

The triumphal expedition of Gen. Alexander W. Doniphan 
and his heroic Missottrians into the heart of Mexico by way 
of Santa Fe, traversing a vast wilderness full of hostile 
savages; subsisting on the enemy's country: winning numer- 



173 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

ous victories over the very flower of the descendants of the 
knights of Castile and Aragon; never losing a gun, a flag, 
a prisoner, or a skirmish, though frequently engaging ten 

times their own number; never drawing from the Govern- 
ment a dollar, a ration, a piece of clothing, or an ounce of 
ammunition from the moment they left Fort Leavenworth, 
Kans.. till, ragged, starving, but invincible, they reported to 
Gen. Zachary Taylor on the red field of Monterey, having 
added an empire to the Union, is the most astounding mar- 
tial achievement in the entire history of the human race. 
In difficulty, in courage, in fortitude, in glory, in results it 
eclipses utterly the far-famed retreat which Xenophon has 
embalmed in immortal prose. 

Kvery schoolboy knows by heart the fascinating story of 
the Greeks; but lew remember the more wonderful perform- 
ance of the Missourians. Mirabile dictu! The glorious name 
of Doniphan, the conqueror of New Mexico, Arizona, and 
Chihuahua, does not even appear in some of our most ambi- 
tious encyclopedias. The reason is that General Doniphan, 
of Missouri, did not emulate the laudable example of General 
Xenophon, ot Greece, by writing a history of his own cam- 
paign; consequently he and the brave Missourians who fol- 
lowed his all-conquering banner are to dumb forgetfulness a 
prey. ' 'Tis true 'tis pity; and pity 'tis 'tis true." While 
1 am not general counsel for the star actors in the world's 
drama, I make bold to suggest to them that if they desire 
a square deal in history they would do well to imitate 
Coesar and Xenophon and write the histories themselves. 

Who cares a straw what Joseph Addison did or did not 
do as Secretary of State? But who that has a love of learn- 
ing in his heart would be willing to see the last copy of the 
Tattler and the Spectator committed to the flames? 



Address of Mr. Clark, of Missouri 173 

John Milton wrought much and successfully in the 1 
of human liberty, but Paradise Lost is his crowning glorj 

Lord Macaulay, the statesman, the lawgiver, thi offio 
holder, would have been forgotten years ago, but so long as 
our vernacular — the most elastic and virile ever spoken by 
the children of men — is used the history, the poems, and, 
above all, the essays of Thomas Babbington Macaulay will 
inspire the human mind and thrill the human heart. 

Every scholar that has lived during three centuries has 
regretted that Lord Bacon was ever high chancellor of En- 
gland, an office which he disgraced, and in disgracing which 
he also disgraced the noble profession of the law; hut every 
scholar — aye, every lover of our kind -in all that long lapse 
of years has thanked Almighty God that Francis Bacon 
wrote the Novum Organum and De Augmentis, by which, 
turning the human mind to utilitarianism, he contributed 
more to human comfort than was ever contributed by any 
other of the multitudinous sons of Adam. 

The imperial house of Austria has long been a great 
factor in European affairs. Henry Fielding, the English 
novelist, was related to it by ties of blood; but Gibbon, the 
historian of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
declares that Fielding, by writing Tom Jones, shed more 
luster upon our race than all the Hapsburgers that ever 
lived. 

Of what interest to us are the achievements of Bulwer 
pere in the role of statesman, or of Bulwer fils as governoi 
general of India? But till the end of time men will read 
with interest and women with tears Eugene Aram and 
Lucile. 

Thomas Brackett Reed, that masterful man whose memory 
we all cherish with infinite pride, was one of the great 



iJ4 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

vSpeakers of this House, and accomplished a tremendous revo- 
lution in parliamentary procedure; but his fame is already a 
fading tradition. What would not the world give for a book 
from his trenchant pen expressing his honest opinions as to 
the men and measures with which he was associated? It 
would be a fit companion piece for Gulliver and The Letters 
of Junius. 

Senator Chauneey Mitchell Depew ranks high in the Senate; 
but the best service he could render his kind would be to devote 
his days and nights to writing a book of reminiscences. Many 
New Yorkers would make creditable Senators; but no other 
living man could write a book of such intense and abiding 
interest as could Senator Depew. 

There has been much sneering at " the scholar in politics." 
That manifestation of bad temper and jealousy is easy and 
cheap. ( )n a memorable occasion an eminent practical Penn- 
sylvania politician referred to an illustrious citizen of Boston 
who had been named for a high diplomatic post as " one of 
them literary fellows," with a profane adjective which the 
proprieties forbid me to repeat in this distinguished presence on 
this historic occasion. Nevertheless and notwithstanding. Col. 
Thomas Hart Benton, of Missouri, bywriting his Thirty Years' 
View did more to make himself a great and indispensable 
historic figure than he accomplished by his arduous service of 
six full Roman lustrums in the Senate and two years in the 
House. As long as government exists on this continent lie 
will be regarded as a standard authority on all matters pertain- 
ing to Congressional legislation. By writing his Twenty Years 
of Congress James Gillespie Blaine made a most valuable con- 
tribution to our political literature and achieved for himself a 
more permanent renown than if the supreme ambition of his 
heart had been gratified by an election to the Presidency. 



Address of Mr. Clark, of Missouri 175 

Samuel Sullivan Cox, one of the most brilliant of mortals, a 
Representative in Congress for many years from both < )hio and 
New York, as well as minister to the Sublime Porte, and the 
first man that ever delivered a speech in this Hall, may fade 
from public memory as a statesman, but The Buckeye Abroad, 
Why We Laugh, and The Three Decades of Federal Legislation 
will be perused with pleasure by millions yet unborn. 

For thirty-odd years, in House and Senate, Georgk Frisbie 
Hoar was one of the most conspicuous legislators and orators 
of the times in which he lived. No great statute was placed 
upon the books which he did not have a hand in shaping. 
No important question arose which he did not discuss; but 
long after all that he did and said in this Chamber and the 
other has passed from the minds of men his Autobiography 
of Seventy Years will challenge the admiration of his coun- 
trymen. His noblest mental offspring was the last. 

His book has been criticised on two grounds — as being too 
egotistical and as assigning to New Knglanders in general, 
and Massachusetts men in particular, too high rank. At 
first blush I deemed both criticisms well taken, hut upon 
mature reflection I concluded that neither is tenable. An 
autobiography, whether written by a Harvard man or by a 
Davy Crockett, is in the very nature of things egotistical, 
for the ego is the very essence of the theme. What might 
be offensive or preposterous in private conversation or in 
public speech may be appropriate and even pleasing in auto- 
biographical writing. 

When he came to the grateful task of assigning the status 
of New Englanders and Bay .State men he evidently took to 
heart the precept of St. Paul: 

But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own 
house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. 



176 Life and Character <>/ George F. Hoar 

Even if it be conceded that he did overpraise the men of 
New England and Massachusetts — 

His failings leaned to virtue's side. 

For an undue friendliness to one's kindred and neighbors 
is greatly preferable to jealousy of them, and hears testimony 
of a nobler soul. 

Indeed, fie had much cause to lie lavish of panegj'ric in 
speaking of the men of Massachusetts. To merely walk the 
streets of Boston and read the inscriptions on her monuments, 
her statues, and her buildings is a liberal education in patriot- 
ism. Should an inhabitant of another planet, versed in both 
Latin and English, descend upon that city, without any prior 
knowledge of our history, he would naturally conclude that 
Massachusetts, single-handed and alone, originated and 
achieved the Revolution, created the Republic, and has sus- 
tained ami governed it from the first. If he should read 
Massachusetts hooks, which constitute a great multitude which 
no man can number, he would he confirmed in this erroneous 
opinion. No complaint can reasonably he made of Massa- 
chusetts or of Senator Hoar for unduly exalting the horn of 
Massachusetts men. What I do complain of is that the people 
of the South and West have not pursued the same plan with 
their own worthies, and have permitted them to he killed off 
by the inexorahle rule of exclusion. Their pioneer statesmen, 
warriors, orators, and State builders were content to do things, 
great and glorious things, hut were careless of what record was 
made of their achievements. The incorrigible New England 
habit of book-making accounts for the fact that her influence 
in America is large out of all proportion to her area, popu- 
lation, or achievements. Her writers would he destitute of 
human nature if they were not biased — unconsciously, per- 
haps, hut biased nevertheless— in favor of New England men, 



Address of Mr. Clark, q) Missouri 177 

New England women, New England performance, New 

England scenery, New England opinion, and even of New 
England climate. Of course the ground already lust by 
the South and West in this regard can never he recovered ; 
but surely it is high time to go resolutely, systematically, and 
extensively into the book-making business themselves. This 
much they owe to their ancesters, to themselves, to their 
posterity, to history, to truth, and to patriotism. 

Thousands of statesmen, orators, soldiers, and lawyers haw 
lived and been forgotten; but it may be safely stated that 
since Guttenburg invented movable types no man has written 
a really great book who is not still remembered by intelligent 
persons. 

Macaulay says: 

One of the most remarkable circumstances in the history of Bacon's 
mind is the order in which its powers expanded themselves. With him 
the fruit came first and remained to the last. The blossoms did not appear 
till late. In general, the development of the fancy is to the development 
of the judgment what the growth of a girl is tu the growth of a boy. The 
fancy attains at an earlier period to the perfection of its beauty, its power, 
and its fruitfulness, and, as it is first to ripen, it is also first to fade. It 
has generally lost something of its bloom and freshness before the sterner 
faculties have reached maturity, ami is commonly withered and barren 
while those faculties still retain all their energy. It rarely happens that 
the fancy and the judgment grow together. It happens still more rarely 
that the judgment grows faster than the fancy. This seems, however, to 
have been the case with Bacon. His boyhood and youth appear to have 
been singularly sedate. His gigantic scheme of philosophical reform is 
said by some writers to have been planned before he was 15. and was 
undoubtedly planned while he was still young. He observed as vigilantly, 
meditated as deeply, and judged as temperately when he gave his first 
work to the world as at the close of his long career. But in eloquence, 
in sweetness, and variety of expression, and in richness of illustration, 
his later writings are far superior to those of his youth. 

These words may be applied almost literally to Senator 
Hoar. From the day he delivered his great philippic against 
Mr. Secretary Belknap to the hour of his death he spoke as 
S. Doc. 201, 58-3 12 



ijs Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

frequently perhaps as any other man in public life, and every 
word that fell from his lips was read with eagerness by the 
intelligence of America. His style constantly grew richer, 
more imaginative, and more ornate, until some of his later 
speeches partook largely of the nature of epic poems. The 
peculiar order of growth which Macaulay notes in Bacon's 
mind, and which I have just stated to Vie true with reference 
to Senator Hoar's, is also true, though in a lesser degree, 
of the intellects of Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, and 
William McKinley. The feature in which their minds and 
styles seem to have changed most markedly in their advanced 
years was that of humor. Prior to their induction into the 
Presidential office it would be difficult to discover even a 
trace of humor in their writings or their speeches; but after 
quitting the White House both Mr. Cleveland and General 
Harrison developed a rich vein of humor. On his trip to 
California President McKinley lightened up his speeches with 
genial humor, which was a grateful surprise to his country- 
men. Even on his deathbed he uttered one delicious mot 
at the expense of his physicians. I hold it truth that this 
development of humor in these three illustrious citizens of 
tlie Republic was so much clear gain to all our people. 

It may possibly be — who knows? — that these men were 
dowered with the humorous faculty at birth, hut the occupa- 
tions of their lives had been so serious and so pressing that 
they never had leisure or inclination to indulge its exercise. 

It is a matter of congratulation that they did develop 
that faculty, for I believe in Carlyle's dictum that "Humor 
has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic 
genius. ' 

The career of Senator Hoar suggests still another 
thought — that all the world, including Massachusetts, is 



Address of Mr. Clark, of Missouri [79 

growing more liberal and more tolerant. As a matter of 
fact, Massachusetts has always been liberal and tolerant 
above the average in the range of opinion permitted to her 
public men. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Boston 
shut the doors of Faneuil Hall in the face of Daniel 
Webster, the greatest New Knglander who ever saw tin- 
light of day, the greatest orator who ever spoke the English 
tongue, and that the legislature of Massachusetts passed 
resolutions of censure upon Charles Sumner, because they 
had run counter to the public sentiment of their constitu 
encies. But Senator Hoar's was a happier fate, for, 
notwithstanding the fact that he ran counter to her public 
sentiment more frequently and more violently than either 
Sumner or the godlike Daniel, Massachusetts reelected him 
in his extreme old age to a fifth full term in the Senate of 
the United States. With her increasing generosity the Old 
Bay State would probably have kept him in the Senate a 
half century had he lived so long. This wiser liberality was 
not only an honor to Massachusetts and a gratification to 
Senator Hoar, but is an added glory to the Republic and 
to the human race. 



[8o Life and Character of George F. Hoar 



Address of Mr. Driscoll, of New York 

Mr. Speaker: I came to these memorial exercises to listen 
to the eulogies on the life and services of Senator Hoar deliv- 
ered by those who knew him best and respected him must 
highly, by his friends in the Massachusetts delegation, who 
admired and loved him. The words uttered have been earnest 
and beautiful and form an appropriate tribute to the memory 
of the great departed. It is not possible for me to strengthen 
or embellish what has been said, yet my admiration for the 
deceased statesman was so intense that I can not let this 
occasion pass without adding my humble offering of respect 
and esteem to the memory of this great American, although 
I can not fittingly state my high regard for him as a man and 
my appreciation for his services to the people. 

He was indeed a grand anil good man. His State and coun- 
try have suffered a great loss. He personified the highest type 
of the Xew England citizen, and therefore of the American 
citizen. He was a native of Massachusetts and a descendant 
through many generations of Puritan ancestors. They were a 
remarkable people — severe, austere, uncharitable, and perhaps 
bigoted, hut they were the result of trying and heroic times 
and conditions. They feared God and nothing else. They 
were persecuted in their native land for conscience sake, and 
hade farewell to their homes and friends, embarked in a frail 
and unseaworthy craft, braved the dangers of an unexplored 
ocean, and lauded on the frost-bound shores of a hostile wilder- 
ness; and the\' dared all ami endured all for their convictions. 

They fought their way against an inclement climate and 



Address of Mr. Driscoll, of New York t8i 

sterile soil, savage beasts, and more savage men. The) felled 

the forests and erected churches, schools, and colleges, and 
established a cradle of liberty in which was bred a remarkable 
galaxy of poets, historians, scholars, orators, philosophers, 
statesmen, and patriots. Trial and adversity made them strong 
and self-reliant. They were frugal, industrious, temperate, 
honest, capable, and enterprising. 

Senator Hoak was an offspring of that stock and civilization. 
He inherited their sterling virtues, and by broad scholarship, 
the liberal spirit of modern Harvard, extensive travel, and 
acquaintance with many peoples and customs, and a mind 
always open and in search of light and truth, he became more 
mellow, charitable, and lovable than his rigid forefathers. His 
father was an able lawyer, in easy circumstances, and the son 
was given the best opportunities for education and culture, 
which he diligently improved. He graduated from Harvard 
at 20, commenced the practice of law at 22, and was elected 
to the Massachusetts house of representatives at 26. From 
that time on he was almost continuously in public life, in the 
service of his city, county, State, and nation. He was also a 
member of and took an active interest in many charitable, 
literary, and historical associations. He continued the practice 
of his profession, and by reason of his industry, systematic 
habits, and remarkable mental equipment he did well every- 
thing he undertook. 

He was a Republican in politics and firmly believed his 
partv the only one competent to properly conduct the affairs 
of government; yet because he was an independent thinker 
he sometimes differed with the majority of his party leaders 
in the Senate, and expressed his views according to his con- 
victions. However, he never lost the respect and confidence 
of his colleagues in that body on either side of the Chamber, 



[82 Life and Character <>/ George F. Hoar 

jor while they could not concur with his views they fully 
believed in his honesty, sincerity, patriotism, and singleness 
of purpose. And be it said to the credit of Massachusetts that 
when last returned to the Senate he was in open opposition to 
the Administration's Philippine policy, with which the Repub- 
lican party of his State was in accord. 

That was the last great political, intellectual, and moral bat- 
tle of hi.s eventful career. To him it was essentially a moral 
question. He took his stand not from selfishness or through 
a spirit of antagonism. He was too big, too high-minded, too 
patriotic for that. He believed that the Administration, in the 
ratification of the Treaty of l'aris, was forgetful of the teach- 
ings of the fathers; that it was drifting away from the tradi- 
tions, ideals, ami the fundamental principles of the Republic. 
That treaty followed close on the victory over Spain. < Un- 
people were excited. The lire of battle was in their blood. 
The greed for more land seemed to have taken possession of 
them. The spirit of expansion and commercialism was domi- 
nant. The Senators who approved the treaty doubtless believed 
they were recording the prevailing sentiments of their several 
constituencies. They yielded to the temporary clamor and 
appropriated the Philippines. Not so Senator Hoar. He 
comprehended the situation. He seemed to see the end from 
the beginning. He had clear and positive views and the cour- 
age to express them. 

In that memorable parliamentary debate he stood almost 
alone on the Republican side of the Chamber, taxing to the 
utmost the great powers of his brave heart and resourceful 
brain, striving to convince his colleagues that the ratification of 
that treaty would prove to be a grave mistake. Conscious that 
he was right, he yielded not to the taunts of his enemies or the 
appeals of his friends, like the letter read by Mr. Lovering. 



Address <>/ Mr. Drisco/I, of Nezv York 183 

He went down to defeat, but he had the consolation of having 
stood by his convictions and of having remained true to the 
traditions of his vState and the long line of his illustrious 
ancestors. The logic of events has established the wisdom of 
some of his arguments. It is a pity that he could not have 
lived a few years more, that he might witness the vindication 
of his views and see the pendulum of public opinion swing 
back to the position of unselfish patriotism and true American 
ism on which he then stood. 

He was a constructive statesman, and by his thorough inves- 
tigation of facts and precedents, his analytical mind and intel- 
lectual integrity, he explained and illumined main' dry public 
questions and made them clear and interesting to the ordinary 
reader. By his practical wisdom, force of character, and 
earnestness of purpose he impressed his personality on our 
legislation to a degree seldom equaled. He did not court 
notoriety, neither did he avoid responsibility in order to escape 
criticism. He was a man of pure mind, lofty aspirations, and 
high ideals, and did his duty day by day as he saw it. 

Only a short time ago he completed and published an auto- 
biography. It is a work, of unusual merit, written in his sim- 
ple, pure, delightful style. It illustrates his modesty and 
absence of egotism, for it is a history from personal knowledge 
of his time rather than of himself and what he did. It is very 
interesting and instructive, and a source of inspiration to the 
youth of our country. 

He did not close his books at the end of his college course or 
think of having completed his education, but continued the 
enjoyment of reading and study during his long, busy life, and 
retained the buoyancy and freshness of boyhood, and was one 
of the youngest old men in the country. Neither did his ener- 
gies seem to abate with advancing years. He died while in 



iSj Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

the full tide of his moral and intellectual activity and at the 
zenith of his great fame and influence. His general scholar- 
ship and literary attainments were recognized in educational 
renters, for honorary degrees were conferred upon him by many 
of our greatest colleges and universities. He was a favored 
son nf the Old Bay State. From boyhood he was the recipient 
of many social, literary, and political distinctions, which he 
bore with such simplicity and grace that the people delighted 
to honor him. He was a grand old man, respected, beloved, 
revered by all, and to-day Massachusetts mourns the loss of 
her first citizen. 

In Washington he lived in a plain, temperate, economical 
manner. His influence was derived not from grand dinners 
and social functions, but from work and worth. His pow ? er 
was great, and grew with his years of service. His opportunities 
for gain were many were he pecuniarily inclined, yet it is said 
he died a comparatively poor man. This needs no commentary 
in these times. It speaks for itself. 

In the United States Senate, a body composed largely of 
millionaires, many of whom entered through the financial door- 
way, Senator Hoar stood almost alone. He was not the 
representative of any trust, combine, or special interest; neither 
was he engaged in the advancement of his own schemes, using 
his office as a means to an end. He was a plain, straightfor- 
ward, unassuming gentleman, a profound thinker, an able 
orator, a fearless advocate of what he believed to be the best, 
an accomplished statesman, an incorruptible patriot, and an 
ideal Senator of the American Congress. In his death his 
State has lost her most worthy and distinguished son and tht 
Republic her most able and accomplished legislator, for, take 
him all in all. he was the foremost character in our public life. 



Address of Mr. Powers, oj Massachusetts 1N5 



Address of Mr. Powers, of Massachusetts 

Mr. Speaker: Massachusetts has good reason to be proud 
of the long line of eminent statesmen which she has given to 
the legislative service of the nation. The Commonwealth has 
been fortunate in the existence of political conditions which 
rendered it possible at all times to select for Congressional 
service men of the highest character, ability, and devotion to 
duty. This has been especially true of her representation in 
the Senate. 

I appreciate how difficult the task of attempting to place a 
just estimate upon the character and services of a life at its 
close. The place which Mr. Hoar will take in American his- 
tory can be far better determined a generation hence than now. 
Great political policies which he espoused or opposed still 
remain unsettled. Future events must decide the wisdom and 
value of the opinions which he so earnestly and ably con- 
tended for during the closing years of his life. No one, how- 
ever, will question but that he was one of the great men of 
the generation in which he lived. He possessed those qualities 
of character and temperament which rendered him most 
attractive to the American people. He was aggressive and 
fearless, and at the same time tolerant and liberal. He 
possessed intense convictions, which he was ready to defend 
in any field of intellectual conflict. He worked out his own 
standards of character and conduct. He was a humanitarian 
in the broadest sense of the term. He recognized good in all 
mankind. He understood and sympathized with the tremen- 
dous struggle of the human race to improve its condition, and 
he was easily moved by sympathetic impulses. 



[86 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

My acquaintance with Mr. Hoar began in 1875. Hu was 
then a Representative in Congress from the Worcester district, 
but he was still in active touch with the practice of his pro- 
fession which he loved so well. He was then 49 years of 
age. The mellowing influence of years was not then upon 
him. He was the keen, caustic, aggressive lawyer, the equal 
if not the superior of any attorney of his years in his own 
Commonwealth. By inheritance, education, and temperament 
he was equipped for a great career at the bar. Had he 
remained out of politics and devoted his life to his chosen 
profession there can be no doubt he would have achieved 
great fame as a lawyer and taken a foremost rank at the 
American bar. 

When Mr. Hoak entered Congress he was 43 years of age. 
He had already acquired from the practice of his profession 
what may properly be regarded as a competency for most 
attorneys. He' contemplated after a service of one or two 
terms in Congress to return to private life and continue the 
practice of law. But, like nearly all Members of Congress, 
he yielded to the fascinating influence of a public career. 
He felt the broadening influence of his surroundings. He 
was in touch with the great Republic, and felt the ceaseless 
throb of the pulse of a restless and ambitious nation. The 
ardent patriotism of six generations of American ancestry 
was in his veins. His law books were closed, but the his- 
tory of his country was open to him as never before. He 
reviewed in a new light the great struggle from Plymouth 
to Vorktown, and from Yorktown to Appomattox, and that 
other great struggle of legislative conflict beginning with the 
Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confedera- 
tion down to the amendments to the Constitution which 
worked out the reconstruction of the Republic and rendered 
its future secure. 



Address of Mr. Powers, of Massachusetts 187 

The noted success of his Congressional career during his 
first two terms in the House made him conscious of his 
capacity and power in this new field of activity, and he 
decided to yield to the command of his constituency and 
devote his life to the public service. For thirty-five years — 
a full generation — he gave the best that was in him to the 
service of his country. During that long period no important 
question of legislation was under consideration that did not 
receive his careful thought and attention. Upon most of 
them is to be seen the impress of his keen and forceful 
intellect. 

No man of his time had a more comprehensive knowledge 
of American history. It was a knowledge always at his 
command. But few men have lived who knew the literature 
of the world better than he. The habits of the scholar never 
deserted him. His library to him was peopled with the great 
spirits of the past. He loved to commune with the best 
thoughts of all ages. He made a careful study of the English 
language. His diction was pure and forceful. In the later 
years of his life he prepared his speeches with the greatest 
care. He believed, as he had the right to, that they were to 
live in American history. 

In the early years of his life he was an intense partisan. 
He was a member of the Free Soil party, which was pledged 
to a great reform. But with advancing years he ceased to 
be a partisan. He was fond of the political party to which 
he belonged, but his long experience had taught him that 
even a political party may not always be right. He looked 
upon political parties as a means to an end. Above part} 
and party creed was the Republic. Mr. Hoar took exception 
to several of the policies adopted by the Republican party, 
and he did not hesitate to criticise and even denounce his 



[88 Life and Character of George /•'. Hoar 

own party, in the belief that it was his duty to do so. He 
entertained positive views concerning the acquisition and the 
government of the Philippines. He was opposed to any policy 
which did not provide the same form of government for all 
people living under the American flag. The wisdom of his 
views upon that question can not yet lie determined. No 
man has the right to say that he was not right and the 
majority of his party wrong. A generation hence that ques- 
tion can be determined with exact justice to all. No one 
questions the courage, the patriotism, and the devotion to 
duty of Mr. Hoar. He reached his conclusions after careful 
Study, and was always prepared to defend them. 

Within a little more than a half century Massachusetts has 
been called upon to mourn the loss of three great statesmen — 
Webster. Sumner, and Hoar. All represented her in the 
Congress of the nation. Each achieved his greatness in the 
Senate Chamber. Each in his time was the idol of her 
people, and with the close of their earthly careers deep sorrow 
rested upon the old Commonwealth. But no more profound 
or lasting sorrow ever filled the hearts of the people of my 
Commonwealth than did the announcement of the death of 
Mr. Hoar. He was the friend of all the people; he had 
served all with equal fidelity and devotion. He was a product 
of Massachusetts by birth, education, and citizenship. Mas- 
sachusetts gave this son to the Republic. The service which 
he rendered must hereafter be a part of the history of the 
nation. 



Address of Mr. Keliher, of Massachusetts 189 



Address of Mr. Keliher, of Massachusetts 

Mr. Speaker: The country has suffered the loss of a great 
sou whose useful, brilliant, and exemplary life was, in the 
main, devoted to the upliftmerrt of his fellow-men and the 
elevation of the civic standards of his State and nation. 
Massachusetts mourns the loss of George Frisbie Hoar 
and the nation shares her sorrow, for both will miss his wise, 
sound, and patriotic counsel. 

In accordance with a time-honored custom, we consecrate 
these few hours to the memory of the late Senator, in which 
we may pay our worded tributes to the distinguished dead 
and briefly summarize a few of the many of his virtues that 
earned for him the everlasting love, honor, and respect of 
the American people. 

Upon occasions of this kind the eulogist is apt to stray 
beyond the confines of accurate review and trespass the 
tempting fields of exaggeration and fulsomeness. With a 
subject so replete with interesting and historic data as the 
life of George Frisbie Hoar there is neither necessity nor 
excuse for leaving the straight paths of impartially chronicled 
history of the State he so brilliantly represented and the 
nation he so loyally and conscientiously served. 

He was a splendid type of Massachusetts citizenship — 
sturdy, virile, cultured, liberal, and intensely patriotic. 
Embodying the finest traditions of the country he so ardently 
loved, he was a fine example of the old-school American 
statesman, fast disappearing — more's the pity — to whose 
rugged honesty, consistent conservatism, and marked ability 



190 Life and Character of George F. Hoar 

the present generation should give thanks for the proud 
position these United States occupy in the world of nations. 

Senator Hoar came of a sturdy stock of ancestors that 
for generations back contributed liberally to the fame and 
glory and the material and intellectual wealth of Massachu- 
setts and New England. They were always a public-spirited 
and patriotic people who were ever conspicuous in agitations 
and uprisings, mural or physical, that had for their purpose 
the protesting against an abridgment of the religious freedom 
of the people or arresting the encroachment of governmental 
tyrannies. 

All these commendable traits GEORGE Frisbie Hoak inher- 
ited and effectively brought into play during his active and 
influential service to his State and country. His grandfather 
was one of that immortal band of untrained, undisciplined 
patriots that faced the British regulars on the memorable April 
day one hundred and thirty years ago and fired that history- 
making volley the echo of which will ever sound in the hearts 
of the American people. 

The spirit that rebels against injustice impelled armed resist- 
ance by his grandfather at Concord to the further imposition 
of unjust taxation by the despotic and doltish George. It 
incited the vigorous, effective, and impressive battle main- 
tained by Senator Hciak till the final call against the adoption 
by his party of a policy that he so vigorously denounced as 
unrighteous and un-American. 

Like his fathers before him, he eagerly took up the cause 
of the lowly and oppressed and valiantly prosecuted the fight 
for liberty of the struggling Filipino, parting upon this great 
issue with tlie party he so ardently loved and for which he 
had so untiringly toiled all his life. A strict constitutionist, 
he resisted with his profound reasoning, matchless oratory, 



Address of Mr. Keliher^ of Massachusetts U)\ 

and indomitable opposition the adoption of the new and radical 
doctrine of the Republican party that established a republic 
in Cuba and by force of might denied one to the Filipino, 
acquiring sovereignty over the Philippines instead. 

His veneration for the Constitution and unyielding adher- 
ence to a strict construction of its provisions weakened his 
influence in the Senate, but immeasurably increased the 
affection the people bore him. The attitude of Senator Hoah 
upon the Philippine question was consistent with every public 
act of his life. 

In the earlier days, when the spirit of race and religious 
bigotry was rampant, when the movement to proscribe the 
alien was gaining alarming impetus, George Frisbih HoAK 
stood up, a colossal figure, in opposition. For this Christian 
stand taken by him and men of his kind a tremendous debt 
of gratitude is owed by the immigrants of fifty years ago, 
their children and grandchildren. 

The son of an alien myself, I recall with thankfulness my 
father's frequent and feeling reference to the liberality and 
broadmindedness of Senator Hoar in those trying times. 
Like many of his kind, my father sought these friendly 
shores whose arms were said to be extended in readiness to 
grasp in friendly embrace those who sought relief from the 
oppressions and tyrannies of monarchical governments, and 
whose ambition it was to seize the opportunities in which this 
country so richly abounded. 

Forced from an unfortunate country whose history is one of 
never-ending wrong, every page of which makes the heart sick 
with its record of persecution and annihilation, my expatriated 
father, with hope unlimited, sought refuge in this country, the 
Mecca of the oppressed of the world. Imagine his surprise 
and disappointment to soon find an element in the land he 



i<i2 Life and Character of Georgt F. Hoar 

had dreamed of as the garden of liberty shrieking their hatred 
of the foreign born, and demanding their suppression, deporta- 
tion, and ofttimes their destruction. 

When feeling and prejudice ran high, with no fear of 
political or social effect. Senator Hoar stood up in opposi- 
tion, and did much to bring the American people to a reali- 
zation of the incongruous position they had taken. When 
again, in my day, this spirit of intolerance and narrowness 
was revived; when men high in the councils of his party and 
influential in shaping its policies covertly connived at the 
unpatriotic work that was going on, or cowardly evaded meet- 
ing the reprehensible issue, .Senator Hoar came out into the 
open and denounced it as vehemently as his intense nature 
would permit. His denunciation stirred the people so 
thoroughly that the unholy movement soon died, unwept, 
dishonored, and soon forgotten. 

Senator Hoar\s masterly attributes were a blessed inherit- 
ance. It is not to be wondered that he was scholarly, for his 
A B C's were taught him by a mother who inherited rare 
intellectuality which she instilled and imparted to her son, and 
in his rudimentary studies he was instructed by an exception- 
ally talented father. 

That he was intensely patriotic was due not only to the 
influence of heredity, for environment contributed as well. 
Nursed by a mother whose father, Roger Sherman, was a 
potent factor in shaping the events that led to the Revolu- 
tionary war, and rocked upon the knee of a father whose 
father stood at Concord Bridge, one of the intrepid few that 
fired the shot that gave impetus to the war that resulted in 
tile formation of this great nation, he could not be otherwise 
than patriotic. 



Address oj Mr. Keliker, oj Massachusetts [93 

As a lad he romped upon highways and byways that were 
rich in historical traditions, and grew into manhood in an 
atmosphere of patriotism. He imbibed freely of the profound 
philosophy 7 from the pure wells that were plentiful within the 
confines of classic Concord from the time he arrived at tin- 
age of understanding. The effect upon young Hoak wou'd 
lend credence to the theory that — 

Youth, like the softened wax, with ease will take 
The images that first impressions make. 

Nature gave bountifully when endowing Senator Hoar. 
She made him industrious, and he applied that industry to 
the end that his fellows might benefit from it ; she lavished 
upon him literary attainments, and the result of his efforts in 
those fields were inspiring and instructive ; she made his 
nature broad and liberal, and that liberality exercised a 
potent influence in enlarging the scope of civic rights and 
religious freedom of the harassed and circumscribed ; she 
blessed him with rare powers of statesmanship that were all 
exerted in enhancing the honor and glory of his country. 

Mr. Spea er, Massachusetts has filled the places allotted her 
in yonder Hall by the nation, where in bronze and marble the 
several States may perpetuate their favorite sons. Were there 
another place available the overwhelming sentiment of the peo- 
ple of Massachusetts, without regard to race, religion, or political 
part},', would be voiced in favor of the selection of a statue of 
him who embodied her ideals of manliness, patriotism, liber- 
ality, learning, and statesmanship — George Frisbie Hoak. 

Mr. LovEring. Mr. Speaker, there were several other 
Members who desired to speak, but who have been unable to 
be present. I therefore ask unanimous consent that permission 
be given to those who desire to do so to print in the Record. 
S. Doc. 201, 5S-3 13 



im I Life anil Character oj George F. Hoar 

The Speaker pro tempore. Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Massachusetts? [After a 
pause. ] The Chair hears none. 

Now, in pursuance to the resolution heretofore adopted, the 
House stands adjourned. 

Accordingly i at : o'clock and 37 minutes p. in. ) the House 
adjourned. 

o 



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